knew how much you loved her."

Though prepared to suffer, I found I had no strength to bear a scene
which recalled my memories of past happiness. "Ah!" I thought, "I see

it still, that barren moor, dried like a skeleton, lit by a gray sky,
in the centre of which grew a single flowering bush, which again and

again I looked at with a shudder,--the forecast of this mournful
hour!"

All was gloom in the little castle, once so animated, so full of life.
The servants were weeping; despair and desolation everywhere. The

paths were not raked, work was begun and left undone, the workmen
standing idly about the house. Though the grapes were being gathered

in the vineyard, not a sound reached us. The place seemed uninhabited,
so deep the silence! We walked about like men whose grief rejects all

ordinary topics, and we listened to the count, the only one of us who
spoke.

After a few words prompted by the mechanical love he felt for his wife
he was led by the natural bent of his mind to complain of her. She had

never, he said, taken care of herself or listened to him when he gave
her good advice. He had been the first to notice the symptoms of her

illness, for he had studied them in his own case; he had fought them
and cured them without other assistance than careful diet and the

avoidance of all emotion. He could have cured the countess, but a
husband ought not to take so much responsibility upon himself,

especially when he has the misfortune of finding his experience, in
this as in everything, despised. In spite of all he could say, the

countess insisted on seeing Origet,--Origet, who had managed his case
so ill, was now killing his wife. If this disease was, as they said,

the result of excessive grief, surely he was the one who had been in a
condition to have it. What griefs could the countess have had? She was

always happy; she had never had troubles or annoyances. Their fortune,
thanks to his care and to his sound ideas, was now in a most

satisfactory state; he had always allowed Madame de Mortsauf to reign
at Clochegourde; her children, well trained and now in health, gave

her no anxiety,--where, then, did this grief they talked of come from?
Thus he argued and discussed the matter, mingling his expressions of

despair with senseless accusations. Then, recalled by some sudden
memory to the admiration which he felt for his wife, tears rolled from

his eyes which had been dry so long.
Madeleine came to tell me that her mother was ready. The Abbe

Birotteau followed me. Madeleine, now a grave young girl, stayed with
her father, saying that the countess desired to be alone with me, and

also that the presence of too many persons would fatigue her. The
solemnity of this moment gave me that sense of inward heat and outward

cold which overcomes us often in the great events of life. The Abbe
Birotteau, one of those men whom God marks for his own by investing

them with sweetness and simplicity, together with patience and
compassion, took me aside.

"Monsieur," he said, "I wish you to know that I have done all in my
power to prevent this meeting. The salvation of this saint required

it. I have considered her only, and not you. Now that you are about to
see her to whom access ought to have been denied you by the angels,

let me say that I shall be present to protect you against yourself and
perhaps against her. Respect her weakness. I do not ask this of you as

a priest, but as a humble friend whom you did not know you had, and
who would fain save you from remorse. Our dear patient is dying of

hunger and thirst. Since morning she is a victim to the feverish
irritation which precedes that horrible death, and I cannot conceal

from you how deeply she regrets life. The cries of her rebellious
flesh are stifled in my heart--where they wake echoes of a wound still

tender. But Monsieur de Dominis and I accept this duty that we may
spare the sight of this moral anguish to her family; as it is, they no

longer recognize their star by night and by day in her; they all,
husband, children, servants, all are asking, 'Where is she?'--she is

so changed! When she sees you, her regrets will revive. Lay aside your
thoughts as a man of the world, forget its vanities, be to her the

auxiliary of heaven, not of earth. Pray God that this dear saint die
not in a moment of doubt, giving voice to her despair."

I did not answer. My silence alarmed the poor confessor. I saw, I
heard, I walked, and yet I was no longer on the earth. The thought,

"In what state shall I find her? Why do they use these precautions?"
gave rise to apprehensions which were the more cruel because so

indefinite; all forms of sufferingcrowded my mind.
We reached the door of the chamber and the abbe opened it. I then saw

Henriette, dressed in white, sitting on her little sofa which was
placed before the fireplace, on which were two vases filled with

flowers; flowers were also on a table near the window. The expression
of the abbe's face, which was that of amazement at the change in the

room, now restored to its former state, showing me that the dying
woman had sent away the repulsive preparations which surround a sick-

bed. She had spent the last waning strength of fever in decorating her
room to receive him whom in that final hour she loved above all things

else. Surrounded by clouds of lace, her shrunken face, which had the
greenish pallor of a magnolia flower as it opens, resembled the first

outline of a cherished head drawn in chalks upon the yellow canvas of
a portrait. To feel how deeply the vulture's talons now buried

themselves in my heart, imagine the eyes of that outlined face
finished and full of life,--hollow eyes which shone with a brilliancy

unusual in a dying person. The calm majesty given to her in the past
by her constantvictory over sorrow was there no longer. Her forehead,

the only part of her face which still kept its beautiful proportions,
wore an expression of aggressive will and covert threats. In spite of

the waxy texture of her elongated face, inward fires were issuing from
it like the fluid mist which seems to flame above the fields of a hot

day. Her hollow temples, her sunken cheeks showed the interior
formation of the face, and the smile upon her whitened lips vaguely

resembled the grin of death. Her robe, which was folded across her
breast, showed the emaciation of her beautiful figure. The expression

of her head said plainly that she knew she was changed, and that the
thought filled her with bitterness. She was no longer the arch

Henriette, nor the sublime and saintly Madame de Mortsauf, but the
nameless something of Bossuet struggling against annihilation, driven

to the selfish battle of life against death by hunger and balked
desire. I took her hand, which was dry and burning, to kiss it, as I

seated myself beside her. She guessed my sorrowful surprise from the
very effort that I made to hide it. Her discolored lips drew up from

her famished teeth trying to form a smile,--the forced smile with
which we strive to hide either the irony of vengeance, the expectation

of pleasure, the intoxication of our souls, or the fury of
disappointment.

"Ah, my poor Felix, this is death," she said, "and you do not like
death; odious death, of which every human creature, even the boldest

lover, feels a horror. This is the end of love; I knew it would be so.
Lady Dudley will never see you thus surprised at the change in her.

Ah! why have I so longed for you, Felix? You have come at last, and I
reward your devotion by the same horrible sight that made the Comte de

Rance a Trappist. I, who hoped to remain ever beautiful and noble in
your memory, to live there eternally a lily, I it is who destroy your

illusions! True love cannot calculate. But stay; do not go, stay.
Monsieur Origet said I was much better this morning; I shall recover.

Your looks will bring me back to life. When I regain a little
strength, when I can take some nourishment, I shall be beautiful

again. I am scarcely thirty-five, there are many years of happiness
before me,--happiness renews our youth; yes, I must know happiness! I

have made delightful plans,--we will leave Clochegourde and go to
Italy."

Tears filled my eyes and I turned to the window as if to look at the
flowers. The abbe followed me hastily, and bending over the bouquet

whispered, "No tears!"
"Henriette, do you no longer care for our dear valley," I said, as if

to explain my sudden movement.
"Oh, yes!" she said, turning her forehead to my lips with a fond

motion. "But without you it is fatal to me,--without THEE," she added,
putting her burning lips to my ear and whispering the words like a

sigh.
I was horror-struck at the wild caress, and my will was not strong