evertheless, when he approached her house, and had the feeling of her
near presence, he was troubled. Doubt--and anxiety assailed him. When he
saw through the trees the window of her room, his heart throbbed so
violently that he had to sit down on the root of a tree for a moment.

"I love her like a madman!" he murmured; then leaping up suddenly he
exclaimed, "But she is only a woman, after all--I shall go on!"

For the first time Madame de Tecle received him in her own apartment.
This room M. de Camors had never seen. It was a large and lofty
apartment, draped and furnished in sombre tints.

It contained gilded mirrors, bronzes, engravings, and old family jewelry
lying on tables--the whole presenting the appearance of the ornamentation
of a church.

In this severe and almost religious interior, however rich, reigned a
vague odor of flowers; and there were also to be seen boxes of lace,
drawers of perfumed linen, and that dainty atmosphere which ever
accompanies refined women.

But every one has her personal individuality, and forms her own
atmosphere which fascinates her lover. Madame de Tecle, finding herself
almost lost in this very large room, had so arranged some pieces of
furniture as to make herself a little private nook near the chimneypiece,
which her daughter called, "My mother's chapel." It was there Camors now
perceived her, by the soft light of a lamp, sitting in an armchair, and,
contrary to her custom, having no work in her hands. She appeared calm,
though two dark circles surrounded her eyes. She had evidently suffered
much, and wept much.

On seeing that dear face, worn and haggard with grief, Camors forgot the
neat phrases he had prepared for his entrance. He forgot all except that
he really adored her.

He advanced hastily toward her, seized in his two hands those of the
young woman and, without speaking, interrogated her eyes with tenderness
and profound pity.

"It is nothing," she said, withdrawing her hand and bending her pale face
gently; "I am better; I may even be very happy, if you wish it."

There was in the smile, the look, and the accent of Madame de Tecle
something indefinable, which froze the blood of Camors.

He felt confusedly that she loved him, and yet was lost to him; that he
had before him a species of being he did not understand, and that this
woman, saddened, broken, and lost by love, yet loved something else in
this world better even than that love.

She made him a sl