unrest, which no words could
express. She wrote letters and tore them all up, and invented a thousand
impossible fancies.

When M. de Montriveau's usual hour arrived, she tried to think that he
would come, and enjoyed the feeling of expectation. Her whole life was
concentrated in the single sense of hearing. Sometimes she shut her
eyes, straining her ears to listen through space, wishing that she
could annihilate everything that lay between her and her lover, and so
establish that perfect silence which sounds may traverse from afar. In
her tense self-concentration, the ticking of the clock grew hateful
to her; she stopped its ill-omened garrulity. The twelve strokes of
midnight sounded from the drawing-room.

"Ah, God!" she cried, "to see him here would be happiness. And yet, it
is not so very long since he came here, brought by desire, and the tones
of his voice filled this boudoir. And now there is nothing."

She remembered the times that she had played the coquette with him, and
how that her coquetry had cost her her lover, and the despairing tears
flowed for long.

Her woman came at length with, "Mme la Duchesse does not know, perhaps,
that it is two o'clock in the morning; I thought that madame was not
feeling well."

"Yes, I am going to bed," said the Duchess, drying her eyes. "But
remember, Suzanne, never to come in again without orders; I tell you
this for the last time."

For a week, Mme de Langeais went to every house where there was a hope
of meeting M. de Montriveau. Contrary to her usual habits, she came
early and went late; gave up dancing, and went to the card-tables. Her
experiments were fruitless. She did not succeed in getting a glimpse of
Armand. She did not dare to utter his name now. One evening, however, in
a fit of despair, she spoke to Mme de Serizy, and asked as carelessly as
she could, "You must have quarreled with M. de Montriveau? He is not to
be seen at your house now."

The Countess laughed. "So he does not come here either?" she returned.
"He is not to be seen anywhere, for that matter. He is interested in
some woman, no doubt."

"I used to think that the Marquis de Ronquerolles was one of his
friends----" the Duchess began sweetly.

"I have never heard my brother say that he was acquainted with him."

Mme de Langeais did not reply. Mme de Serizy concluded from the
Duchess's silence that she might apply the scourge with impunity to a
discreet friendship which she had seen, wit