who pressed victorious kisses on her lips, it was his lips, it was he
whom she held in her arms and embraced, whom she was calling to, with all
the longings of her heart, with all the over-wrought ardor of her body.

When she awoke from her dream, she uttered a terrible cry. Captain
Fracasse was kneeling by her, and thanking her, passionately, while he
covered her disheveled hair with kisses, and she almost screamed out:
"Go away! go away! go away!"

And as he did not understand what she meant, and tried to put his arm
round her waist again, she writhed, as she stammered out:

"You are a wretch, and I hate you! Go away! go away!" And he got up in
great surprise, took up his hat, and went.

The next day she returned to _Val de Ciré_, and her husband, who had not
expected her for some time, blamed her for a freak.

"I could not live away from you any longer," she said.

He found her altered in character, and sadder than formerly, but when he
said to her:

"What is the matter with you? You seem unhappy. What do you want?" she
replied:

"Nothing. Happiness exists only in our dreams, in this world."

Avancelle came to see her the next summer, and she received him without
any emotion, and without regret, for she suddenly perceived that she had