pallor, which is the herald of approaching dissolution. She was
apparently healthy and young, and only sick and cold at heart. Perhaps
she only needed some sunbeams to warm up again her chilled heart, only
some gleam of hope to make her soul young again, and strong and ready
once more to love and to suffer. She had never forgotten, never ceased
to think of the past, nor of him whom she had loved so unspeakably,
whom her soul could not let go.

The memories of the past were the life of the present to her. The tree
in the garden which he had admired, the flowers he had loved and which
since then had four times renewed their bloom, the rustling of the
fir-trees which sounded from the wall, all spoke of him, and caused
her heart to beat, she knew not whether with anger or with pain. Even
now, as she sat in her room, her thoughts and fancies were busy with
him. She had been reading, but the book dropped from her hand. From
the love-scenes which were described in it her thoughts roamed far and
wide, and awakened the dreams and hopes of the past.

But Elise did not like to give herself up to these reveries, and at
times had a silent horror even of her own thoughts. She did not like
to confess to herself that she still hoped in the man who had betrayed
her. She had, as it were, a sympathizing pity with herself; she threw
a veil over her heart, to hide from herself that it still quivered
with pain and love. Only at times, in the quiet and solitude of her
chamber, she ventured to draw aside the veil, to look down into the
depths of her soul, and, in agonizing delight, in one dream blend
together the present and the past. She leaned back in her chair,
her large dark eyes fixed on vacancy. Some passage in the book had
reminded her of her own sad love, had struck on her heart like the
hammer of a bell, and in response it had returned but one single note,
the word "Feodor."

"Ah, Feodor!" she whispered to herself, but with a shudder at the
name, and a blush suffused her otherwise pale cheeks for a moment.
"It is the first time my lips have spoken his name, but my heart is
constantly repeating it in hopeless grief, and in my dreams he still
lives. I have accepted my fate; to the world I have separated from
him; to myself, never! Oh, how mysterious is the heart! I hate and yet
I love him." She covered her face with her hands, and sat long silent
and motionless. A noise at the door aroused her. It was only Marianne,
her maid, who cam