terrace at the foot of the
garden. He gazed with absent eye on the tints with which the setting sun
purpled the glades of the wood, while his father paced the terrace with
long strides-smiling as he passed him and hastily brushing away a tear
as he turned his back.

Suddenly Elise de Tecle appeared before them, like an angel dropped
from heaven. She knelt before the crippled youth, kissed his hand, and,
brightening him with the rays of her beautiful eyes, told him she never
had loved him half so well before. He felt she spoke truly; he accepted
her devotion, and they were married soon after.

Madame de Tecle was happy--but she alone was so. Her husband,
notwithstanding the tenderness with which she treated
him--notwithstanding the happiness which he could not fail to read in
her tranquil glance--notwithstanding the birth of a daughter--seemed
never to console himself. Even with her he was always possessed by a
cold constraint; some secret sorrow consumed him, of which they found
the key only on the day of his death.

"My darling," he then said to his young wife--"my darling, may God
reward you for your infinite goodness! Pardon me, if I never have told
you how entirely I love you. With a face like mine, how could I speak of
love to one like you! But my poor heart has been brimming over with it
all the while. Oh, Elise! how I have suffered when I thought of what
I was before--how much more worthy of you! But we shall be reunited,
dearest--shall we not?--where I shall be as perfect as you, and where I
may tell you how much I adore you! Do not weep for me, my own Elise! I
am happy now, for the first time, for I have dared to open my heart to
you. Dying men do not fear ridicule. Farewell, Elise--darling-wife! I
love you!" These tender words were his last.

After her husband's death, Madame de Tecle lived with her father-in-law,
but passed much of her time with her uncle. She busied herself with the
greatest solicitude in the education of her daughter, and kept house for
both the old men, by both of whom she was equally idolized.

From the lips of the priest at Reuilly, whom he called on next day,
Camors learned some of these details, while the old man practiced the
violoncello with his heavy spectacles on his nose. Despite his fixed
resolution of preserving universal scorn, Camors could not resist a
vague feeling of respect for Madame de Tecle; but it did not entirely
eradicate the impure sentiment he was disposed to d