of her past existence. She refused even to think of the happy days
when her heart was free to love. Like as the melodies of their native
land make exiles weep, so these memories revived sensations so
delightful that her young conscience thought them crimes, and sued
them to enforce still further the savage threat of the count. There
lay the secret of the horror which was now oppressing her soul.

Sleeping figures possess a sort of suavity, due to the absolute repose
of both body and mind; but though that species of calmness softened
but slightly the harsh expression of the count's features, all
illusion granted to the unhappy is so persuasive that the poor wife
ended by finding hope in that tranquillity. The roar of the tempest,
now descending in torrents of rain, seemed to her no more than a
melancholy moan; her fears and her pains both yielded her a momentary
respite. Contemplating the man to whom her life was bound, the
countess allowed herself to float into a reverie, the sweetness of
which was so intoxicating that she had no strength to break its charm.
For a moment, by one of those visions which in some way share the
divine power, there passed before her rapid images of a happiness lost
beyond recall.

Jeanne in her vision saw faintly, and as if in a distant gleam of
dawn, the modest castle where her careless childhood had glided on;
there were the verdant lawns, the rippling brook, the little chamber,
the scenes of her happy play. She saw herself gathering flowers and
planting them, unknowing why they wilted and would not grow, despite
her constancy in watering them. Next, she saw confusedly the vast town
and the vast house blackened by age, to which her mother took her when
she was seven years old. Her lively memory showed her the old gray
heads of the masters who taught and tormented her. She remembered the