lone along the edge of the lake.

"It was a night such as one reads of in fairy tales. The full moon showed
itself in the middle of the sky; the tall mountains, with their snowy
crests, seemed to wear silver crowns; the waters of the lake glittered
with tiny shining ripples. The air was mild, with that kind of
penetrating warmth which enervates us till we are ready to faint, to be
deeply affected without any apparent cause. But how sensitive, how
vibrating the heart is at such moments! how quickly it beats, and how
intense is its emotion!

"I sat down on the grass, and gazed at that vast, melancholy, and
fascinating lake, and a strange feeling arose in me; I was seized with an
insatiable need of love, a revolt against the gloomy dullness of my life.
What! would it never be my fate to wander, arm in arm, with a man I
loved, along a moon-kissed bank like this? Was I never to feel on my lips
those kisses so deep, delicious, and intoxicating which lovers exchange
on nights that seem to have been made by God for tenderness? Was I never
to know ardent, feverish love in the moonlit shadows of a summer's night?

"And I burst out weeping like a crazy woman. I heard something stirring
behind me. A man stood there, gazing at me. When I turned my head round,
he recognized me, and, advancing, said:

"'You are weeping, madame?'

"It was a young barrister who was travelling with his mother, and whom we
had often met. His eyes had frequently followed me.

"I was so confused that I did not know what answer to give or what to
think of the situation. I told him I felt ill.

"He walked on by my side in a natural and respectful manner, and began
talking to me about what we had seen during our trip. All that I had felt
he translated into words; everything that made me thrill he understood
perfectly, better than I did myself. And all of a sudden he repeated some
verses of Alfred de Musset. I felt myself choking, seized with
indescribable emotion. It seemed to me that the mountains themselves, the
lake, the moonlight, were singing to me about things ineffably sweet.

"And it happened, I don't know how, I don't know why, in a sort of
hallucination.

"As for him, I did not see him again till the morning of his departure.

"He gave me his card!"

And, sinking into her sister's arms, Madame Letore broke into groans
--almost into shrieks.

Then, Madame Roubere, with a self-contained and serious air, said very
gently:

"You see, sist