decentralization that the young Count proposed to speak to Madame de
Tecle, when, at the appointed hour, he presented himself before her.
He found her in the garden, which, like the house, was of an ancient,
severe, and monastic style. A terrace planted with limetrees extended on
one side of the garden. It was at this spot that Madame de Tecle was
seated under a group of lime-trees, forming a rustic bower.

She was fond of this place, because it recalled to her that evening when
her unexpected apparition had suddenly inspired with a celestial joy the
pale, disfigured face of her betrothed.

She was seated on a low chair beside a small rustic table, covered with
pieces of wool and silk; her feet rested on a stool, and she worked on a
piece of tapestry, apparently with great tranquillity.

M. de Camors, an expert in all the niceties and exquisite devices of the
feminine mind, smiled to himself at this audience in the open air. He
thought he fathomed its meaning. Madame de Tecle desired to deprive this
interview of the confidential character which closed doors would have
given it.

It was the simple truth. This young woman, who was one of the noblest of
her sex, was not at all simple. She had not passed ten years of her
youth, her beauty, and her widowhood without receiving, under forms more
or less direct, dozens of declarations that had inspired her with
impressions, which, although just, were not always too flattering to the
delicacy and discretion of the opposite sex. Like all women of her age,
she knew her danger, and, unlike most of them, she did not love it.
She had invariably turned into the broad road of friendship all those she
had surprised rambling within the prohibited limits of love. The request