* * * * *

I threw a veil over the follies which every age will pardon to youth,
on the ground of so many balked desires and bitter memories. In the
morning, scarcely raising her liquid eyes, Madame de T-----, fairer
than ever, said to me:

"Now will you ever love the countess as much as you do me?"

I was about to answer when her maid, her confidante, appeared saying:

"You must go. It is broad daylight, eleven o'clock, and the chateau is
already awake."

All had vanished like a dream! I found myself wandering through the
corridors before I had recovered my senses. How could I regain my
apartment, not knowing where it was? Any mistake might bring about an
exposure. I resolved on a morning walk. The coolness of the fresh air
gradually tranquilized my imagination and brought me back to the world
of reality; and now instead of a world of enchantment I saw myself in
my soul, and my thoughts were no longer disturbed but followed each
other in connected order; in fact, I breathed once more. I was, above
all things, anxious to learn what I was to her so lately left--I who
knew that she had been desperately in love with the Marquis de V-----.
Could she have broken with him? Had she taken me to be his successor,
or only to punish him? What a night! What an adventure! Yes, and what
a delightful woman! While I floated on the waves of these thoughts, I
heard a sound near at hand. I raised my eyes, I rubbed them, I could
not believe my senses. Can you guess who it was? The Marquis de
V-----!