. Hearing the
sound of hurried steps behind her, she turned and saw, not two steps from
her, the stranger who, during the storm, had vainly tried to attract her
attention. There was a moment's silence. The young man stood motionless,
trying to catch his breath, which had been hurried, either by emotion or
rapid walking. Madame de Bergenheim, with head thrown back and widely
opened eyes, looked at him with a more agitated than surprised look.

"It is you," exclaimed he, impulsively, "you whom I had lost and now find
again!"

"What madness, Monsieur!" she replied, in a low voice, putting out her
hand as if to stop him.

"I beg of you, do not look at me so! Let me gaze at you and assure myself
that it is really you--I have dreamed of this moment for so long! Have I
not paid dear enough for it? Two months passed away from you--from
heaven! Two months of sadness, grief, and unhappiness! But you are pale!
Do you suffer, too?"

"Much, at this moment."

"Clemence!"

"Call me Madame, Monsieur de Gerfaut," she interrupted, severely.

"Why should I disobey you? Are you not my lady, my queen?"

He bent his knee as a sign of bondage, and tried to seize her hand, which
she immediately withdrew. Madame de Bergenheim seemed to pay very little
attention to the words addressed her; her uneasy glances wandered in
every direction, into the depths of the bushes and the slightest
undulations of the ground. Gerfaut understood this pantomime. He glanced,
in his turn, over the place, and soon discovered at some distance a more
propitious place for such a conversation as theirs. It was a semicircular
recess in one of the thickets in the park. A rustic seat under a large
oak seemed to have been placed there expressly for those who came to seek
solitude and speak of love. From there, one could see the approach of
danger, and, in case of alarm, the wood offered a secure retreat. The
young man had had enough experience in gallant strategies to seize the
advantage of this position, and wended his steps in that direction while
continuing to converse. It may be that instinct which, in a critical
situation, makes us follow mechanically an unknown impulse; it may be
that the same idea of prudence had also struck her, for Madame de
Bergenheim walked beside him.

"If you could understand what I suffered," said he, "when I found that
you had left Paris! I could not discover at first where you had gone;
some spoke of Corandeuil, others of Italy. I