days she had ever enjoyed, and how quickly they were over!

And then--her discovery--of the penalty she paid! What anguish!

Of that journey to the South, that long journey, her sufferings, her
constant terror, that secluded life in the small, solitary house on the
shores of the Mediterranean, at the bottom of a garden, which she did not
venture to leave. How well she remembered those long days which she spent
lying under an orange tree, looking up at the round, red fruit, amid the
green leaves. How she used to long to go out, as far as the sea, whose
fresh breezes came to her over the wall, and whose small waves she could
hear lapping on the beach. She dreamed of its immense blue expanse
sparkling under the sun, with the white sails of the small vessels, and a
mountain on the horizon. But she did not dare to go outside the gate.
Suppose anybody had recognized her!

And those days of waiting, those last days of misery and expectation! The
impending suffering, and then that terrible night! What misery she had
endured, and what a night it was! How she had groaned and screamed! She
could still see the pale face of her lover, who kissed her hand every
moment, and the clean-shaven face of the doctor and the nurse's white cap.

And what she felt when she heard the child's feeble cries, that wail, that
first effort of a human's voice!

And the next day! the next day! the only day of her life on which she had
seen and kissed her son; for, from that time, she had never even caught a
glimpse of him.

And what a long, void existence hers had been since then, with the thought
of that child always, always floating before her. She had never seen her
son, that little creature that had been part of herself, even once since
then; they had taken him from her, carried him away, and had hidden him.
All she knew was that he had been brought up by some peasants in Normandy,
that he had become a peasant himself, had married well, and that his
father, whose name he did not know, had settled a handsome sum of money on
him.

How often during the last forty years had she wished to go and see him and
to embrace him! She could not imagine to herself that he had grown! She
always thought of that small human atom which she had held in her arms and
pressed to her bosom for a day.

How often she had said to M. d'Apreval: "I cannot bear it any longer; I
must go and see him."

But he had always stopped her and kept her from going. She would be