? The beginning is remarkable. Loyer is not
lacking in political sense."

The carriage, having traversed the fields bordered with willows, went
up a hill and advanced on a vast, wooded plateau. For a long time it
skirted the walls of the park.

"Is it the Guerric?" asked the Princess Seniavine.

Suddenly, between two stone pillars surmounted by lions, appeared the
closed gate. At the end of a long alley stood the gray stones of a
castle.

"Yes," said Montessuy, "it is the Guerric."

And, addressing Therese:

"You knew the Marquis de Re? At sixty-five he had retained his strength
and his youth. He set the fashion and was loved. Young men copied his
frockcoat, his monocle, his gestures, his exquisite insolence, his
amusing fads. Suddenly he abandoned society, closed his house, sold his
stable, ceased to show himself. Do you remember, Therese, his sudden
disappearance? You had been married a short time. He called on you
often. One fine day people learned that he had quitted Paris. This is
the place where he had come in winter. People tried to find a reason for
his sudden retreat; some thought he had run away under the influence of
sorrow or humiliation, or from fear that the world might see him grow
old. He was afraid of old age more than of anything else. For seven
years he has lived in retirement from society; he has not gone out of
the castle once. He receives at the Guerric two or three old men who
were his companions in youth. This gate is opened for them only. Since
his retirement no one has seen him; no one ever will see him. He shows
the same care to conceal himself that he had formerly to show himself.
He has not suffered from his decline. He exists in a sort of living
death."

And Therese, recalling the amiable old man who had wished to finish
gloriously with her his life of gallantry, turned her head and looked at
the Guerric lifting its four towers above the gray summits of oaks.

On their return she said she had a headache and that she would not take
dinner. She locked herself in her room and drew from her jewel casket
the lamentable letter. She read over the last page.

"The thought that you belong to another burns me. And then, I did not
wish that man to be the one."

It was a fixed idea. He had written three times on the same leaf these
words: "I did not wish that man to be the one."

She, too, had only one idea: not to lose him. Not to lose him, she would
have said anything, she would have do