room, and, with persistent dreaminess, gazing through the half-open door into the garden. I knew what was passing at that moment in her soul; I knew that, after a brief but agonising struggle, she was at that instant giving herself up to a feeling she could no longer master.
All at once she got up, went quickly out into the garden, and disappeared.
An hour passed . . . a second; she had not returned.
Then I got up, and, getting out of the house, I turned along the walk by which—of that I had no doubt—she had gone.
All was darkness about me; the night had already fallen. But on the damp sand of the path a roundish object could be discerned—bright red even through the mist.
I stooped down. It was a fresh, new-blown rose. Two hours before I had seen this very rose on her bosom.
I carefully picked up the flower that had fallen in the mud, and, going back to the drawing-room, laid it on the table before her chair.
And now at last she came back, and with light footsteps, crossing the whole room, sat down at the table.
Her face was both paler and more vivid; her
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