of the
birds in the woods, the long golden reflections under the trees, all
seemed to unite in filling the soul with sadness; but neither the
murmuring water, the singing birds, nor the sun's splendor was paid any
attention to by Madame de Bergenheim; she gave them neither a glance nor
a sigh. Her meditation was not revery, but thought; not thoughts of the
past, but of the present. There was something precise and positive
in the rapid, intelligent glance which flashed from her eyes when she
raised them; it was as if she had a lucid foresight of an approaching
drama.

A moment after she had passed over the wooden bridge which led from the
avenue, a man wearing a blouse crossed it and followed her. Hearing the
sound of hurried steps behind her, she turned and saw, not two steps
from her, the stranger who, during the storm, had vainly tried to
attract her attention. There was a moment's silence. The young man stood
motionless, trying to catch his breath, which had been hurried, either
by emotion or rapid walking. Madame de Bergenheim, with head thrown
back and widely opened eyes, looked at him with a more agitated than
surprised look.

"It is you," exclaimed he, impulsively, "you whom I had lost and now
find again!"

"What madness, Monsieur!" she replied, in a low voice, putting out her
hand as if to stop him.

"I beg of you, do not look at me so! Let me gaze at you and assure
myself that it is really you--I have dreamed of this moment for so
long! Have I not paid dear enough for it? Two months passed away from
you--from heaven! Two months of sadness, grief, and unhappiness! But you
are pale! Do you suffer, too?"

"Much, at this moment."

"Clemence!"

"Call me Madame, Monsieur de Gerfaut," she interrupted, severely.

"Why should I disobey you? Are you not my lady, my queen?"

He bent his knee as a sign of bondage, and tried to seize her hand,
which she immediately withdrew. Madame de Bergenheim seemed to pay very
little attention to the words addressed her; her uneasy glances wandered
in every direction, into the depths of the bushes and the slightest
undulations of the ground. Gerfaut understood this pantomime. He
glanced, in his turn, over the place, and soon discovered at some
distance a more propitious place for such a conversation as theirs. It
was a semicircular recess in one of the thickets in the park. A rustic
seat under a large oak seemed to have been placed there expressly for
those who came to see