explained,
even by themselves." The dame had been sensibly touched by Caroline's
confidence in her, and she was too loyal to her sex to repeat even to
Froumois her recent conversation with Caroline.

They found plenty of other topics, however, and over the tea and Cognac
the dame and valet passed an hour of delightful gossip.

Caroline, left to the solitude of her chamber, sat silently with her
hands clasped in her lap. Her thoughts pressed inward upon her. She
looked out without seeing the fair landscape before her eyes.

Tears and sorrow she had welcomed in a spirit of bitter penitence for
her fault in loving one who no longer regarded her. "I do not deserve
any man's regard," murmured she, as she laid her soul on the rack of
self-accusation, and wrung its tenderest fibres with the pitiless rigor
of a secret inquisitor. She utterly condemned herself while still
trying to find some excuse for her unworthy lover. At times a cold
half-persuasion, fluttering like a bird in the snow, came over her that
Bigot could not be utterly base. He could not thus forsake one who had
lost all--name, fame, home, and kindred--for his sake! She clung to the
few pitying words spoken by him as a shipwrecked sailor to the plank
which chance has thrown in his way. It might float her for a few hours,
and she was grateful.

Immersed in these reflections, Caroline sat gazing at the clouds, now
transformed into royal robes of crimson and gold--the gorgeous train
of the sun filled the western horizon. She raised her pale hands to her
head, lifting the mass of dark hair from her temples. The fevered blood,
madly coursing, pulsed in her ear like the stroke of a bell.

She remembered a sunset like this on the shores of the Bay of Minas,
where the thrush and oriole twittered their even-song before seeking
their nests, where the foliage of the trees was all ablaze with golden
fire, and a shimmering path of sunlight lay upon the still waters like a
glorious bridge leading from themselves to the bright beyond.

On that well-remembered night her heart had yielded to Bigot's
pleadings. She had leaned her head upon his bosom, and received the kiss
and gave the pledge that bound her to him forever.

The sun kept sinking--the forests on the mountain tops burst into a
bonfire of glory. Shadows went creeping up the hill-sides until the
highest crest alone flamed out as a beacon of hope to her troubled soul.

Suddenly, like a voice from the spirit world