his arrival a rumor was spread about the country--by
what means no one seemed to know--of the passion of the young Duc de
Nivron for Gabrielle Beauvouloir. People in Rouen spoke of it to the Duc
d'Herouville in the midst of a banquet given to celebrate his return to
the province; for the guests were glad to deliver a blow to the despot
of Normandy. This announcement excited the anger of the governor to the
highest pitch. He wrote to the baron to keep his coming to Herouville a
close secret, giving him certain orders to avert what he considered to
be an evil.

It was under these circumstances that Etienne and Gabrielle unrolled
their thread through the labyrinth of love, where both, not seeking
to leave it, thought to dwell. One day they had remained from morn to
evening near the window where so many events had taken place. The hours,
filled at first with gentle talk, had ended in meditative silence.
They began to feel within them the wish for complete possession; and
presently they reached the point of confiding to each other their
confused ideas, the reflections of two beautiful, pure souls. During
these still, serene hours, Etienne's eyes would sometimes fill with
tears as he held the hand of Gabrielle to his lips. Like his mother, but
at this moment happier in his love than she had been in hers, the hated
son looked down upon the sea, at that hour golden on the shore, black
on the horizon, and slashed here and there with those silvery caps which
betoken a coming storm. Gabrielle, conforming to her friend's action,
looked at the sight and was silent. A single look, one of those by which
two souls support each other, sufficed to communicate their thoughts.
Each loved with that love so divinely like unto itself at every instant
of its eternity that it is not conscious of devotion or sacrifice
or exaction, it fears neither deceptions nor delay. But Etienne and
Gabrielle were in absolute ignorance of satisfactions, a desire for
which was stirring in their souls.

When the first faint tints of twilight drew a veil athwart the sea, and
the hush was interrupted only by the soughing of the flux and reflux
on the shore, Etienne rose; Gabrielle followed his motion with a vague
fear, for he had dropped her hand. He took her in one of his arms,
pressing her to him with a movement of tender cohesion, and she,
comprehending his desire, made him feel the weight of her body enough
to give him the certainty that she was all his, but