word a little oftener. Still, the grenadier knew how to amuse her and
play with her; my hope was in him, but--"

He was silent for a moment.
"Here," he continued, "she has found another creature, with whom she

seems to have some strange understanding. It is a poor idiotic
peasant-girl, who, in spite of her ugliness and stupidity, loved a

man, a mason. The mason was willing to marry her, as she had some
property. Poor Genevieve was happy for a year; she dressed in her best

to dance with her lover on Sunday; she comprehended love; in her heart
and soul there was room for that one sentiment. But the mason, Dallot,

reflected. He found a girl with all her senses, and more land than
Genevieve, and he deserted the poor creature. Since then she has lost

the little intellect that love developed in her; she can do nothing
but watch the cows, or help at harvesting. My niece and this poor girl

are friends, apparently by some invisible chain of their common
destiny, by the sentiment in each which has caused their madness.

See!" added Stephanie's uncle, leading the marquis to a window.
The latter then saw the countess seated on the ground between

Genevieve's legs. The peasant-girl, armed with a huge horn comb, was
giving her whole attention to the work of disentangling the long black

hair of the poor countess, who was uttering little stifled cries,
expressive of some instinctive sense of pleasure. Monsieur d'Albon

shuddered as he saw the utter abandonment of the body, the careless
animal ease which revealed in the hapless woman a total absence of

soul.
"Philippe, Philippe!" he muttered, "the past horrors are nothing!--Is

there no hope?" he asked.
The old physician raised his eyes to heaven.

"Adieu, monsieur," said the marquis, pressing his hand. "My friend is
expecting me. He will soon come to you."

"Then it was really she!" cried de Sucy at d'Albon's first words. "Ah!
I still doubted it," he added, a few tears falling from his eyes,

which were habitually stern.
"Yes, it is the Comtesse de Vandieres," replied the marquis.

The colonel rose abruptly from his bed and began to dress.
"Philippe!" cried his friend, "are you mad?"

"I am no longer ill," replied the colonel, simply. "This news has
quieted my suffering. What pain can I feel when I think of Stephanie?

I am going to the Bons-Hommes, to see her, speak to her, cure her. She
is free. Well, happiness will smile upon us--or Providence is not in

this world. Think you that that poor woman could hear my voice and not
recover reason?"

"She has already seen you and not recognized you," said his friend,
gently, for he felt the danger of Philippe's excited hopes, and tried

to cast a salutary doubt upon them.
The colonel quivered; then he smiled, and made a motion of

incredulity. No one dared to oppose his wish, and within a very short
time he reached the old priory.

"Where is she?" he cried, on arriving.
"Hush!" said her uncle, "she is sleeping. See, here she is."

Philippe then saw the poor insane creature lying on a bench in the
sun. Her head was protected from the heat by a forest of hair which

fell in tangled locks over her face. Her arms hung gracefully" target="_blank" title="ad.优美地，斯文地">gracefully to the
ground; her body lay easily posed like that of a doe; her feet were

folded under her without effort; her bosom rose and fell at regular
intervals; her skin, her complexion, had that porcelain whiteness,

which we admire so much in the clear transparent faces of children.
Standing motionless beside her, Genevieve held in her hand a branch

which Stephanie had doubtless climbed a tall poplar to obtain, and the
poor idiot was gently waving it above her sleepingcompanion, to chase

away the flies and cool the atmosphere.
The peasant-woman gazed at Monsieur Fanjat and the colonel; then, like

an animal which recognizes its master, she turned her head slowly to
the countess, and continued to watch her, without giving any sign of

surprise or intelligence. The air was stifling; the stone bench
glittered in the sunlight; the meadow exhaled to heaven those impish

vapors which dance and dart above the herbage like silvery dust; but
Genevieve seemed not to feel this all-consuming heat.

The colonel pressed the hand of the doctor violently" target="_blank" title="ad.强暴地；猛烈地">violently in his own. Tears
rolled from his eyes along his manly cheeks, and fell to the earth at

the feet of his Stephanie.
"Monsieur," said the uncle, "for two years past, my heart is broken

day by day. Soon you will be like me. You may not always weep, but you
will always feel your sorrow."

The two men understood each other; and again, pressing each other's
hands, they remained motionless, contemplating the exquisite calmness

which sleep had cast upon that graceful creature. From time to time
she gave a sigh, and that sigh, which had all the semblance of

sensibilities, made the unhappycolonel tremble with hope.
"Alas!" said Monsieur Fanjat, "do not deceive yourself, monsieur;

there is no meaning in her sigh."
Those who have ever watched for hours with delight the sleep of one

who is tenderlybeloved, whose eyes will smile to them at waking, can
understand the sweet yet terrible emotion that shook the colonel's

soul. To him, this sleep was an illusion; the waking might be death,
death in its most awful form. Suddenly, a little goat jumped in three

bounds to the bench, and smelt at Stephanie, who waked at the sound.
She sprang to her feet, but so lightly that the movement did not

frighten the freakish animal; then she caught sight of Philippe, and
darted away, followed by her four-footed friend, to a hedge of elders;

there she uttered the same little cry like a frightened bird, which
the two men had heard near the other gate. Then she climbed an acacia,

and nestling into its tufted top, she watched the stranger with the
inquisitive attention of the forest birds.

"Adieu, adieu, adieu," she said, without the soul communicating one
single intelligent inflexion to the word.

It was uttered impassively, as the bird sings his note.
"She does not recognize me!" cried the colonel, in despair.

"Stephanie! it is Philippe, thy Philippe, PHILIPPE!"
And the poor soldier went to the acacia; but when he was a few steps

from it, the countess looked at him, as if defying him, although a
slight expression of fear seemed to flicker in her eye; then, with a

single bound she sprang from the acacia to a laburnum, and thence to a
Norway fir, where she darted from branch to branch with extraordinary

agility.
"Do not pursue her," said Monsieur Fanjat to the colonel, "or you will

arouse an aversion which might become insurmountable. I will help you
to tame her and make her come to you. Let us sit on this bench. If you

pay no attention to her, she will come of her own accord to examine
you."

"SHE! not to know me! to flee me!" repeated the colonel, seating
himself on a bench with his back to a tree that shaded it, and letting

his head fall upon his breast.
The doctor said nothing. Presently, the countess came gently down the

fir-tree, letting herself swing easily on the branches, as the wind
swayed them. At each branch she stopped to examine the stranger; but

seeing him motionless, she at last sprang to the ground and came
slowly towards him across the grass. When she reached a tree about ten

feet distant, against which she leaned, Monsieur Fanjat said to the
colonel in a low voice,--

"Take out, adroitly, from my right hand pocket some lumps of sugar you
will feel there. Show them to her, and she will come to us. I will

renounce in your favor my sole means of giving her pleasure. With
sugar, which she passionately loves, you will accustom her to approach

you, and to know you again."
"When she was a woman," said Philippe, sadly, "she had no taste for

sweet things."
When the colonel showed her the lump of sugar, holding it between the

thumb and forefinger of his right hand, she again uttered her little
wild cry, and sprang toward him; then she stopped, struggling against