stagnation? Had this judge, who had so much in his power, ever
revenged himself? Was he feeding himself on her long agony? Is it not
a remarkable thing in Paris to keep anger always seething for ten
years? What had Octave done since this great misfortune--for the
separation of husband and wife is a great misfortune in our day, when
domestic life has become a social question, which it never was of old?

"We allowed a few days to pass on the watch, for great sorrows have a
diffidence of their own; but at last, one evening, the Count said in a
grave voice:

"'Stay.'



"This, as nearly as may be, is his story.

"'My father had a ward, rich and lovely, who was sixteen at the time
when I came back from college to live in this old house. Honorine, who
had been brought up by my mother, was just awakening to life. Full of
grace and of childish ways, she dreamed of happiness as she would have
dreamed of jewels; perhaps happiness seemed to her the jewel of the
soul. Her piety was not free from puerile pleasures; for everything,
even religion, was poetry to her ingenuous heart. She looked to the
future as a perpetual fete. Innocent and pure, no delirium had
disturbed her dream. Shame and grief had never tinged her cheek nor
moistened her eye. She did not even inquire into the secret of her
involuntary emotions on a fine spring day. And then, she felt that she
was weak and destined to obedience, and she awaited marriage without
wishing for it. Her smiling imagination knew nothing of the corruption