, and throw him back into the nothingness of his
past life. Yet with the corrupt inspirations of his depraved soul he
foresaw that the moment he touched her hands with the lips of a lover
a new sentiment would spring up in her soul. As he abandoned himself to
these passionate imaginings, the recollection of young Madame Lescande
came back suddenly to his memory. He grew pale in the darkness. At this
moment he was passing the edge of a little wood belonging to the Comte
de Tecle, of which a portion had recently been cleared. It was not
chance alone that had directed the Count's ride to this point. Madame
de Tecle loved this spot, and had frequently taken him there, and on the
preceding evening, accompanied by her daughter and her father-in-law,
had visited it with him.

The site was a peculiar one. Although not far from houses, the wood was
very wild, as if a thousand miles distant from any inhabited place.

You would have said it was a virgin forest, untouched by the axe of the
pioneer. Enormous stumps without bark, trunks of gigantic trees,
covered the declivity of the hill, and barricaded, here and there, in a
picturesque manner, the current of the brook which ran into the valley.
A little farther up the dense wood of tufted trees contributed to
diffuse that religious light half over the rocks, the brushwood and the
fertile soil, and on the limpid water, which is at once the charm and
the horror of old neglected woods. In this solitude, and on a space of
cleared ground, rose a sort of rude hut, constructed by a poor devil
who was a sabot-maker by trade, and who had been allowed to establish
himself there by the Comte de Tecle, and to use the beech-trees to gain
his humble living. This Bohemian interested Madame de Tecle, probably
because, like M. de Camors, he had a bad reputation. He lived in his
cabin with a woman who was still pretty under her rags, and with two
little boys with golden curls.

He was a stranger in the neighborhood, and the woman was said not to
be his wife. He was very taciturn, and his features seemed fine and
determined under his thick, black beard.

Madame de Tecle amused herself seeing him make his sabots. She loved the
children, who, though dirty, were beautiful as angels; and she pitied
the woman. She had a secret project to marry her to the man, in case she
had not yet been married, which seemed probable.

Camors walked his horse slowly over the rocky and winding path on the
slope of th