maternal, after having been in love with him, without some feelings
of gratitude and emotion.

And that resolution transfigured her, restored to her temporarily,
something of her youth, which had so soon fled away, and a poor, heroic
saint amongst all the saints, she took refuge in a Carmelite convent, so
as to escape from this returning temptation, and to bequeath everything
of which she could lawfully dispose, to Monsieur de Gèdrè.




THE AWAKENING


During the three years that she had been married, she had not left the
_Val de Ciré_, where her husband possessed two cotton-mills. She led a
quiet life, and although she had no children, she was quite happy in her
house among the trees, which the work-people called the _château_.

Although Monsieur Vasseur was considerably older than she was, he was
very kind. She loved him, and no guilty thought had ever entered her
mind.

Her mother came and spent every summer at Ciré, and then returned to
Paris for the winter, as soon as the leaves began to fall.

Jeanne coughed a little every autumn, for the narrow valley through which
the river wound, grew foggy for five months. First of all, slight mists
hung over the meadows, making all the low-lying ground look like a large