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would see Denise, that he would pour forth at her feet the pas
sionate emotions of his heart, and hear from her the words
which would give him courage to face his own family, and as
sert his own independence. As he hurried along the street, some
one tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around, and saw
that it was Dr. Dubois.
" You here, M. George? " "
the physician said. How are you
all at La Pinede? I hope Madame la Comtesse is well, and
feels no pain in her arm now. By the way, I supnose she was
satisfied with the garde malade I recommended. She is a capital
hand at nursing, that fair'lady, and will make an excellent
Sister of Charity. Not but that I think it rather a pity that
such a beautiful face should be hid under a cornette, much as I
love and revere that strange head-dress."
"What do you mean, Dr. Dubois?" George stammered in a
" "
nervous manner. Does Mdlle. do la Pinede intend
" Intend, my good sir ! she went yesterday to the hospital at
Marseilles, and is at this moment, I have no doubt, already at
work under the Sisters. I saw her just before her departure.
No bride ever looked brighter and happier. Women are wonderful
when they get what they call a vocation, and take to be
saints. There is a bit of the soldier, too, in these Sisters of
Charity. I like them for that. They are afraid of nothing.
Good night, M. George. Give my kind respects to M. le Comte
and Madame la Comtesse."
Gone! gone forever! Severed from him, not by a grate, or
by convent walls, but by a life as hopelessly separated from his
own as if an abyss had opened between them. George felt
stunned, and mechanically walked on to the ramparts till he
came to a bench, and there he sat looking at the sea and the
starry sky with a sort of hopeless, dull dejection. None knew
what had been the sufferings of his soul during the last three
years.
He had led a very strange, a very lonely life, with no inward
light as to his own state of mind, puzzled about himself as much
as others were about him. From the moment he had seen De-
nise, the apathy which had so long oppressed him disappeared.
His admiration his love at first sight for her seemed to
awaken his dormant faculties. Her faith and her enthusiasm
rekindled smouldering sparks which had languished in his soul.
George had never lost his belief in religion, or entirely omitted
its most essential duties; but since his illness he had not thought
much about it. His piety, if he had any, was of the vaguest
description a sort of almost pantheistic worship of the beauties
of nature a poetical and dreamy religious feeling, such as
inspired Victor Hugo in his earlier days, and Lamartine when
he wrote his meditations, and had not yet indulged in wild
sophistry and heretical aberrations.
But Demse's faith had struck him as something at once
divine and real. During the three weeks she had spent at
La Pinede the life of his soul had revived but it was only
a reflected light as yet. During her absence he had suffered
deeply. Her presence had been the delight, and at the same
time the strength, as it were, of his existence. It wa%-as if a
blind person had for a while, in some strange manner, seen and
gazed on a world new to him, and then that the light had gone
out and left him in his previous darkness. But still he had
lived on the memory of those days. He had looked to their renewal
; he had seen bright visions, and dreamed hopeless dreams,
till that moment when, sitting in the deepening shades of night,
he felt the old, hard, dull feeling in his heart returning, only
with a more aching oppression than before.
At last he rose, and with feverish speed retraced his steps.
It was then that the little shepherds thought they saw a ghost
pass them on the road: it was then that he silently slipped into
his room; then that he took out of their box the toys of little
Denise de la Pinede, and wept over them as a child; then that
he felt careless of his own destiny, indifferent to his own life
anything then he could endure except a struggle, except another
allusion to his vain love for that angel who had disappeared for
ever from his sight; then that h had yielded that calm, supiue
SHE XO'l'ARY'S UM'tiUTEK. 29
consent to a marriage which could not make him more miser-
able than he was, and at any rate would content otlirr-,
When Demse's letter was given to linn, lie cairn i! it
have said, into the (-impel where ho had last seen her. lit nail
it on his kuees, and it soothed Ins anguish. Tin- idea that ill
prayer, at least, she would sometimes think of him, relieved
the .sharp pain at his heart. He rejoiced
made. It seemed to keep up a sort of link
at the vow he
between them.
had
He
did not pray, unless there was tacit prayer in the tears h
in our Lord's presence, and his silent ga/e at Hie iahernacl