frenzied anguish over the
snow-covered plain; she saw the burned bivouacs and the fatal raft about
to be launched on a frozen Beresina. She saw Major Philip brandishing
his sabre among the crowd. The cry that broke from Mme. de Vandieres
made the blood run cold in the veins of all who heard it. She stood face
to face with the colonel, who watched her with a beating heart. At first
she stared blankly at the strange scene about her, then she reflected.
For an instant, brief as a lightning flash, there was the same quick
gaze and total lack of comprehension that we see in the bright eyes of a
bird; then she passed her hand across her forehead with the intelligent
expression of a thinking being; she looked round on the memories that
had taken substantial form, into the past life that had been transported
into her present; she turned her face to Philip--and saw him! An awed
silence fell upon the crowd. The colonel breathed hard, but dared
not speak; tears filled the doctor's eyes. A faint color overspread
Stephanie's beautiful face, deepening slowly, till at last she glowed
like a girl radiant with youth. Still the bright flush grew. Life and
joy, kindled within her at the blaze of intelligence, swept through her
like leaping flames. A convulsive tremor ran from her feet to her heart.
But all these tokens, which flashed on the sight in a moment, gathered
and gained consistence, as it were, when Stephanie's eyes gleamed with
heavenly radiance, the light of a soul within. She lived, she thought!
She shuddered--was it with fear? God Himself unloosed a second time
the tongue that had been bound by death, and set His fire anew in the
extinguished soul. The electric torrent of the human will vivified the
body whence it had so long been absent.

"Stephanie!" the colonel cried.

"Oh! it is Philip!" said the poor Countess.

She fled to the trembling arms held out towards her, and the embrace
of the two lovers frightened those who beheld it. Stephanie burst into
tears.

Suddenly the tears ceased to flow; she lay in his arms a dead weight, as
if stricken by a thunderbolt, and said faintly:

"Farewell, Philip!... I love you.... farewell!"

"She is dead!" cried the colonel, unclasping his arms.

The old doctor received the lifeless body of his niece in his arms as a
young man might have done; he carried her to a stack of wood and set
her down. He looked at her face, and laid a feeble hand, tremulous with
agitation, upon her heart