Arrived at the little villa, he found it occupied only by workmen--it
was under repair. No one could tell him to what residence the ladies who
occupied it the last year had removed.

"I shall learn from Mrs. Morley," thought Graham, and at her house he
called in going back, but Mrs. Morley was not at home; he had only just
time, after regaining his apartment, to change his dress for the
dinner to which he was invited. As it was, he arrived late, and
while apologising to his host for his want of punctuality, his tongue
faltered. At the farther end of the room he saw a face, paler and
thinner than when he had seen it last--a face across which a something
of grief had gone.

The servant announced that dinner was served.

"Mr. Vane," said Duplessis, "will you take into dinner Mademoiselle
Cicogna?"

BOOK XI.

CHAPTER I.

Amoung the frets and checks to the course that "never did run smooth,"
there is one which is sufficiently frequent, for many a reader will
remember the irritation it caused him. You have counted on a meeting
with the beloved one unwitnessed by others, an interchange of
confessions and vows which others may not hear. You have arranged almost
the words in which your innermost heart is to be expressed; pictured to
yourself the very looks by which those words will have their sweetest
reply. The scene you have thus imagined appears to you vivid and
distinct, as if foreshown in a magic glass. And suddenly, after long
absence, the meeting takes place in the midst of a common companionship:
nothing that you wished to say can be said. The scene you pictured is
painted out by the irony of Chance; and groups and backgrounds of which
you had never dreamed start forth from the disappointing canvas. Happy
if that be all! But sometimes, by a strange, subtle intuition, you feel
that the person herself is changed; and sympathetic with that change, a
terrible chill comes over your own heart.

Before Graham had taken his seat at the table beside Isaura, he felt
that she was changed to him. He felt it by her very touch as their hands
met at the first greeting,--by the tone of her voice in the few words
that passed between them,--by the absence of all glow in the smile which
had once lit up her face, as a burst of sunshine lights up a day in
spring, and gives a richer gladness of colour to all its blooms. Once
seated side by side they remained for some moments silent. Indeed, it
would have been rather di