ere_. Honore and Aurora had got
there before them, and were passing on up the stairs. Clotilde,
catching, a moment before, a glimpse of her face, had seen that there
was something wrong; weather-wise as to its indications she perceived an
impending shower of tears. A faint shade of anxiety rested an instant on
her own face. Frowenfeld could not go in. They paused a little within
the obscurity of the corridor, and just to reassure themselves that
everything _was_ "all right," they--

God be praised for love's young dream!

The slippered feet of the happy girl, as she slowly mounted the stair
alone, overburdened with the weight of her blissful reverie, made no
sound. As she turned its mid-angle she remembered Aurora. She could
guess pretty well the source of her trouble; Honore was trying to treat
that hand-clasping at the bedside of Agricola as a binding compact;
"which, of course, was not fair." She supposed they would have gone into
the front drawing-room; she would go into the back. But she
miscalculated; as she silently entered the door she saw Aurora standing
a little way beyond her, close before Honore, her eyes cast down, and
the trembling fan hanging from her two hands like a broken pinion. He
seemed to be reiterating, in a tender undertone, some question intended
to bring her to a decision. She lifted up her eyes toward his with a
mute, frightened glance.

The intruder, with an involuntary murmur of apology, drew back; but, as
she turned, she was suddenly and unspeakably saddened to see Aurora drop
her glance, and, with a solemn slowness whose momentous significance
was not to be mistaken, silently shake her head.

"Alas!" cried the tender heart of Clotilde. "Alas! M. Grandissime!"

CHAPTER LXI

"NO!"

If M. Grandissime had believed that he was prepared for the supreme
bitterness of that moment, he had sadly erred. He could not speak. He
extended his hand in a dumb farewell, when, all unsanctioned by his
will, the voice of despair escaped him in a low groan. At the same
moment, a tinkling sound drew near, and the room, which had grown dark
with the fall of night, began to brighten with the softly widening light
of an evening lamp, as a servant approached to place it in the front
drawing-room.

Aurora gave her hand and withdrew it. In the act the two somewhat
changed position, and the rays of the lamp, as the maid passed the door,
falling upon Aurora's face, betrayed the again upturned eyes.