vision faded, and he waked up to find himself alone. Willan Blaycke had
never loved any woman. If he had,--if he had had even the least
experience in the way of passionate fancies, he could have rated this
impression which Victorine had produced on him for what it was worth and
no more, and taking counsel of his pride have waited till the discomfort
of it should have passed away. But he knew no better than to suppose
that because it was so keen, so haunting, it must last forever. He was
almost appalled at the condition in which he found himself. It more than
equalled all the descriptions which he had read of unquenchable love. He
could not eat; he could not occupy himself with any affairs: all
business was tedious to him, and all society irksome. He lay awake long
hours, seeing the arch black eyes and rosy cheeks and piquant little
mouth; worn out by restlessness, he slept, only to see the eyes and
cheeks and mouth more vividly. It was all to no purpose that he reasoned
with himself,--that he asked himself sternly a hundred times a day,--

"Wilt thou take the granddaughter of Victor Dubois to be the mother of
thy children? Is it not enough that thy father disgraced his name for
that blood? Wilt thou do likewise?"

The only answer which came to all these questions was Victorine's soft
whisper: "Oh, if thou didst but know, sir, how I wish myself safe back
in the convent!" and, "Thou seemest to me like the men of whom Sister
Clarice did tell me."

"Poor little girl!" he said; "she is of their blood, but not of their
sort. Her mother was doubtless a good and pure woman, even though she
had not good birth or breeding; and this child hath had good training
from the Sisters in the convent. She is of a most ladylike bearing, and
has a fine sense of all which is proper and becoming, else would she not