a commission for his
granddaughter, he came to the convent parlour and asked for the fair
recluse. She, although she had never seen him, recognised him at the
first glance; for having never seen so handsome a cavalier as he who now
presented himself before her, she thought this could be no other than the
Marquis de Ganges, of whom people had so often spoken to her.

That which was to happen, happened: the Marquise de Castellane and the
Marquis de Ganges could not look upon each other without loving. Both
were young, the marquis was noble and in a good position, the marquise
was rich; everything in the match, therefore, seemed suitable: and indeed
it was deferred only for the space of time necessary to complete the year
of mourning, and the marriage was celebrated towards the beginning of the
year 1558. The marquis was twenty years of age, and the marquise
twenty-two.

The beginnings of this union were perfectly happy; the marquis was in
love for the first time, and the marquise did not remember ever to have
been in love. A son and a daughter came to complete their happiness.
The marquise had entirely forgotten the fatal prediction, or, if she
occasionally thought of it now, it was to wonder that she could ever have
believed in it. Such happiness is not of this world, and when by chance
it lingers here a while, it seems sent rather by the anger than by the
goodness of God. Better, indeed, would it be for him who possesses and
who loses it, never to have known it.

The Marquis de Ganges was the first to weary of this happy life. Little
by little he began to miss the pleasures of a young man; he began to draw
away from the marquise and to draw nearer to his former friends. On her
part, the marquise, who for the sake of wedded intimacy had sacrificed
her habits of social life, threw herself into society, where new triumphs
awaited her. These triumphs aroused the jealousy of the marquis; but he
was too much a man of his century to invite ridicule by any
manifestation; he shut his jealousy into his soul, and it emerged in a
different form on every different occasion. To words of love, so sweet
that they seemed the speech of angels, succeeded those bitter and biting
utterances that foretell approaching division. Before long, the marquis
and the marquise only saw each other at hours when they could not avoid
meeting; then, on the pretext of necessary journeys, and presently
without any pretext at all, the marquis woul