r violent remedies, we hinder the action of nature; we deprive
ourselves of the blessed relief of comparative forgetfulness, promised
to those who will accept their suffering, and so transform it into a
chronic affection, the memories of which, though hidden, are none the
less true and deep.

If we violently oppose this salutary process, we produce an acute evil,
in which the imagination acts upon the heart; and as the latter from
its nature is limited, while the former is infinite, it is impossible
to calculate the violence of the impressions to which a man may yield
himself.

When Marie-Gaston returned to the house at Ville d'Avray, after two
years' absence, he fancied that only a tender if melancholy memory
awaited him; but not a step could he make without recalling his lost
joys and the agony of losing them. The flowers that his wife had loved,
the lawns, the trees just budding into greenness under the warm breath
of May,--they were here before his eyes; but she who had created this
beauteous nature was lying cold in the earth. Amid all the charms and
elegances gathered to adorn this nest of their love, there was nothing
for the man who rashly returned to that dangerous atmosphere but sounds
of lamentation, the moans of a renewed and now ever-living grief.
Alarmed himself at the vertigo of sorrow which seized him, Marie-Gaston
shrank, as Sallenauve had said, from taking the last step in his ordeal;
he had calmly discussed with his friend the details of the mausoleum he
wished to raise above the mortal remains of his beloved Louise, but he
had not yet brought himself to visit her grave in the village cemetery
where he had laid them. There was everything, therefore, to fear from
a grief which time had not only not assuaged, but, on the contrary, had
increased by duration, until it was sharper and more intolerable than
before.

The gates were opened by Philippe, the old servant, who had been
constituted by Madame Gaston majordomo of the establishment.

"How is your master?" asked Sallenauve.

"He has gone away, monsieur," replied Philippe.

"Gone away!"

"Yes, monsieur; with that English gentleman whom monsieur left here with
him."

"But without a word to me! Do you know where they have gone?"

"After dinner, which went off very well, monsieur suddenly gave orders
to pack his travelling-trunk; he did part of it himself. During that
time the Englishman, who said he would go into the park and smoke, asked
me