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You would never think her unhappy. Everything about her speaks of happiness. She wears necklaces of gold, and purple rohes. When she goes out, a throng of vassals lie prostrate in her path, and obedient pages spread carpets before her feet. But none see her in the solitude that she loves ; for then she weeps, and her husband does not see her tears. 1 am that miserable being, the spouse of an honorable man, of a noble count, the mother of a child whose smiles stab me to the heart. MATUKIN : Bert rain. THE Countess d'Ahlefeld rose after a sleepless night to face a restless day. Half-reclining on a sofa, she pondered the bitter after-taste of corrupt pleasures, and the crime which wastes life in ecstasy without enjoyment and grief without alleviation. She thought of Musdce- inon, whom guilty illusions had once painted in such seduc- tive colors, so frightful now that she had penetrated his mask and seen his soul through his body. The wretched woman wept, not because she had been deceived, but be-