of an angel, which
rose like the song of a nightingale as the rain ceases. I walked about
under the acacias in the loveliest night of the month of August, waiting
for the countess to join me. I knew she would come; her gesture promised
it. For several days an explanation seemed to float between us; a word
would suffice to send it gushing from the spring, overfull, in our
souls. What timidity had thus far delayed a perfect understanding
between us? Perhaps she loved, as I did, these quiverings of the spirit
which resembled emotions of fear and numbed the sensibilities while we
held our life unuttered within us, hesitating to unveil its secrets
with the modesty of the young girl before the husband she loves. An
hour passed. I was sitting on the brick balustrade when the sound of
her footsteps blending with the undulating ripple of her flowing gown
stirred the calm air of the night. These are sensations to which the
heart suffices not.

"Monsieur de Mortsauf is sleeping," she said. "When he is thus I give
him an infusion of poppies, a cup of water in which a few poppies have
been steeped; the attacks are so infrequent that this simple remedy
never loses its effect--Monsieur," she continued, changing her tone and
using the most persuasive inflexion of her voice, "this most unfortunate
accident has revealed to you a secret which has hitherto been sedulously
kept; promise me to bury the recollection of that scene. Do this for my
sake, I beg of you. I don't ask you to swear it; give me your word of
honor and I shall be content."

"Need I give it to you?" I said. "Do we not understand each other?"

"You must not judge unfavorably of Monsieur de Mortsauf; you see the
effects of his many sufferings under the emigration," she went on.
"To-morrow he will entirely forget all that he has said and done; you
will find him kind and excellent as ever."

"Do not seek to excuse him, madame," I replied. "I will do all you wish.
I would fling myself into the Indre at this moment if I could restore
Monsieur de Mortsauf's health and ensure you a happy life. The only
thing I cannot change is my opinion. I can give you my life, but not
my convictions; I can pay no heed to what he says, but can I hinder him
from saying it? No, in my opinion Monsieur de Mortsauf is--"

"I understand you," she said, hastily interrupting me; "you are right.
The count is as nervous as a fashionable woman," she added, as if to
conceal the idea of madness by soft