cter; it had
appeared first in his access of drunken wrath, when some of his
demonstrations of hatred to my person were of a truly fiendish
character, and now it was more covertly betrayed by momentary
contractions of the features, and flashes of fierceness in his light
blue eyes, when their glance chanced to encounter mine. He absolutely
avoided speaking to me; I was now spared even the falsehood of his
politeness. In this state of our mutual relations, my soul rebelled
sometimes almost ungovernably, against living in the house and
discharging the service of such a man; but who is free from the
constraint of circumstances? At that time, I was not: I used to rise
each morning eager to shake off his yoke, and go out with my portmanteau
under my arm, if a beggar, at least a freeman; and in the evening, when
I came back from the pensionnat de demoiselles, a certain pleasant voice
in my ear; a certain face, so intelligent, yet so docile, so reflective,
yet so soft, in my eyes; a certain cast of character, at once proud
and pliant, sensitive and sagacious, serious and ardent, in my head; a
certain tone of feeling, fervid and modest, refined and practical, pure
and powerful, delighting and troubling my memory--visions of new ties I
longed to contract, of new duties I longed to undertake, had taken the
rover and the rebel out of me, and had shown endurance of my hated lot
in the light of a Spartan virtue.

But Pelet's fury subsided; a fortnight sufficed for its rise, progress,
and extinction: in that space of time the dismissal of the obnoxious
teacher had been effected in the neighbouring house, and in the same
interval I had declared my resolution to follow and find out my pupil,
and upon my application for her address being refused, I had summarily
resigned my own post. This last act seemed at once to restore Mdlle.
Reuter to her senses; her sagacity, her judgment, so long misled by a
fascinating delusion, struck again into the right track the moment
that delusion vanished. By the right track, I do not mean the steep and
difficult path of principle--in that path she never trod; but the plain
highway of common sense, from which she had of late widely diverged.
When there she carefully sought, and having found, industriously pursued
the trail of her old suitor, M. Pelet. She soon overtook him. What arts
she employed to soothe and blind him I know not, but she succeeded both
in allaying his wrath, and hoodwinking his discernme