he castle, it seemed to him that he
had just passed through the most delicious moments of his life; that he
had experienced the strangest, the most puzzling, yet complete emotion
a man might feel, intoxicated with the same love by the seductiveness
emanating from two women.

"Ah, what an exquisite evening!" said he, as soon as he found himself
between them in the lamplight.

"I am not at all sleepy," said Annette; "I could pass the whole night
walking when the weather is fine."

The Countess looked at the clock.

"Oh, it is half after eleven. You must go to bed, my child."

They separated, and went to their own apartments. The young girl who did
not wish to go to bed was the only one that went to sleep at once.

The next morning, at the usual hour, when the maid, after opening the
curtains and the shutters, brought the tea and looked at her mistress,
who was still drowsy, she said:

"Madame looks better to-day, already."

"Do you think so?"

"Oh, yes. Madame's face looks more rested."

Though she had not yet looked at herself, the Countess knew that this
was true. Her heart was light, she did not feel it throb, and she felt
once more as if she lived. The blood flowing in her veins was no longer
coursing so rapidly as on the day before, hot and feverish, sending
nervousness and restlessness through all her body, but gave her a sense
of well-being and happy confidence.

When the maid had gone she went to look at herself in the mirror. She
was a little surprised, for she felt so much better that she expected
to find herself rejuvenated by several years in a single night. Then
she realized the childishness of such a hope, and, after another glance,
resigned herself to the knowledge that her complexion was only clearer,
her eyes less fatigued, her lips a little redder than on the day
before. As her soul was content, she could not feel sad, and she smiled,
thinking: "Yes, in a few days I shall be quite myself again. I have gone
through too much to recover so quickly."

But she remained seated a very long time before her toilet-table, upon
which were laid out in graceful order on a muslin scarf bordered
with lace, before a beautiful mirror of cut crystal, all her little
ivory-handled instruments of coquetry, bearing her arms surmounted by a
coronet. There they were, innumerable, pretty, all different, destined
for delicate and secret use, some of steel, fine and sharp, of strange
shapes, like surgical instrument