ught anything new to a
more conceited or bolder suitor, but was a wonderful revelation to de
Sigognac, who had scarcely dared to hope that his passionate, devoted
love might some day be returned, filled him with such rapturous,
overwhelming delight, that he was almost beside himself. A burning flush
overspread his usually pale face; he seemed to see flames before his
eyes; there was a strange ringing in his ears, and his heart throbbed
so violently that he felt half suffocated. Losing control of himself in
this moment of ecstasy, so intense that it was not unmixed with pain,
he suddenly seized Isabelle passionately in his arms, strained her
trembling form convulsively to his heaving breast, and covered her face
and neck with burning kisses. She did not even try to struggle against
this fierce embrace, but, throwing her head back, looked fixedly at him,
with eyes full of sorrow and reproach. From those lovely eyes, clear and
pure as an angel's, great tears welled forth and rolled down over her
blanched cheeks, and a suppressed sob shook her quivering frame as a
sudden faintness seemed to come over her. The young baron, distracted at
the sight of her grief, and full of keen self-reproach, put her gently
down into a low, easy-chair standing near, and kneeling before her, took
in both his own the hands that she abandoned to him, and passionately
implored her pardon; pleading that a momentary madness had taken
possession of him, that he repented of it bitterly, and was ready to
atone for his offence by the most perfect submission to her wishes.

"You have hurt me sadly, my friend!" said Isabelle at last, with a
deep-drawn sigh. "I had such perfect confidence in your delicacy and
respect. The frank, unreserved avowal of my love for you ought to have
been enough, and have shown you clearly, by its very openness, that I
trusted you entirely. I believed that you would understand me and let
me love you in my own way, without troubling my tenderness for you by
vulgar transports. Now, you have robbed me of my feeling of security.
I do not doubt your words, but I shall no longer dare to yield to the
impulses of my own heart. And yet it was so sweet to me to be with you,
to watch you, to listen to your dear voice, and to follow the course of
your thoughts as I saw them written in your eyes. I wished to share your
troubles and anxieties, de Sigognac, leaving your pleasures to others.
I said to myself, among all these coarse, dissolute,