."

The stranger looked darkly down, toying with a book which lay at the
edge of the table. The girl waited awhile and then--

"Did you bring a message from my father?" she asked, a slight tinge of
impatience and hauteur in her manner.

"No, mademoiselle, I have not seen him this morning," he answered. And
his sullenness matched her impatience.

"Had you not better follow him then?" she said, with sharpness. "He is
at M. Carnot's. He may need you."

For a moment it was plain that M. Baudouin hesitated, but in the end he
made up his mind to obey, and bowing with exaggerated respect he left
the room.

The Vicomte thought that he could not do better than follow the other's
example, and he too withdrew. Crossing the lobby to the room which
communicated with his hiding-place he threw himself into a chair and
gave himself up to the most melancholy reflections. The singular
resemblance which Mademoiselle Claire bore to his wife must alone have
sufficed to fill him with vain longings and poignant regrets; but these
were now rendered a thousand times more bitter by the knowledge, so
cruelly conveyed to him, that his wife had died believing him a
heartless and faithless coward.

The return of M. Mirande later in the day, if it did not dispel these
gloomy thoughts, compelled him at any rate to conceal them. The evening
meal passed much as the morning one had passed; the host uttering a few
formal phrases, while the other two sat for the most part silent. The
Vicomte could not avert his eyes from his sister-in-law; and though he
no longer felt the violent emotions which her face had at first awakened
in him, he sat sad and unhappy. Her pale features reminded him of the
dead past: and at once tortured him with regret, and tantalized him with
the simulacrum of that which had been his. He could have cursed the
Heaven that had formed two beings so much alike.

In this way a week passed by, and little by little a vague discomfort
and restlessness began to characterize the attitude of his mind towards
her. He felt himself at once attracted by her beauty--as what man of his
years would not?--and repelled by the likeness that made of the feeling
a sacrilege. Meantime, whether he would or no, they were left
together--much together. M. Mirande went abroad each day and seemed
intent on public affairs. Each day, indeed, his look grew a trifle more
austere, and the shade on his brow grew deeper; but though it was
evident that the situ