that these must be lifted one by one like the veils that hid her
divine loveliness. The Duchess became, for him, the most simple
and girlish mistress; she was the one woman in the world for him;
and he went away quite happy in that at last he had brought her
to give him such pledges of love, that it seemed to him
impossible but that he should be but her husband henceforth in
secret, her choice sanctioned by Heaven.

Armand went slowly home, turning this thought in his mind with
the impartiality of a man who is conscious of all the
responsibilities that love lays on him while he tastes the
sweetness of its joys. He went along the Quais to see the widest
possible space of sky; his heart had grown in him; he would fain
have had the bounds of the firmament and of earth enlarged. It
seemed to him that his lungs drew an ampler breath. In the course
of his self-examination, as he walked, he vowed to love this woman
so devoutly, that every day of her life she should find absolution
for her sins against society in unfailing happiness. Sweet
stirrings of life when life is at the full! The man that is strong
enough to steep his soul in the colour of one emotion, feels
infinite joy as glimpses open out for him of an ardent lifetime
that knows no diminution of passion to the end; even so it is
permitted to certain mystics, in ecstasy, to behold the Light of
God. Love would be naught without the belief that it would last
forever; love grows great through constancy. It was thus that,
wholly absorbed by his happiness, Montriveau understood passion.

"We belong to each other forever!"

The thought was like a talisman fulfilling the wishes of his