y spun. Even if you had come, who knows whether I
might not still be here? True, if I had known then, what I know now--"

"What, Toinette, what!"

She hesitated a moment, then with closed eyes and her delicate brows
contracted in an expression almost threatening in its sternness, said
slowly and softly: "That my womanly nature would some day awake, that
the hour would come when, like every other lonely creature I should
long for a happy love--and that I then should belong to a man, of whom
my soul knows nothing, and who would force me to drain to the dregs the
sorrowful cup that broke my mother's heart!" She sank down upon a moss
covered stone beside the road, and buried her face in her hands.

Edwin stood before her; he did not feel the rain, which now began to
fall in heavy drops, did not pick up her gloves, which had slipped from
her lap and lay on the wet ground; he made no reply to little Jean's
question whether he should close the carriage, except to wave the
intruder away with his hand. All his thoughts were absorbed in the one
emotion of pity he felt for the woman once so deeply loved, who across
the gulf of years had suddenly once more approached so near him, as if
naught had even come between them.

"My poor dear friend," he faltered at last, "be calm, compose yourself,
you're no longer alone. I am here, I--" His voice died away. How false
and powerless was everything he could say. Toinette suddenly rose,
shook back her hair, as we do when reminded that we must hold up our
heads, and said with a forced smile:

"I believe we're getting wet. The little discomforts of life have their
use; they cause annoyance and compel a division even in the midst of
great sorrow. Give me your arm again, and open the umbrella. Ten paces
farther on is a beech wood, where the foliage is so thick that we might
quietly await a deluge. To be sure, my velvet dress is ruined, and I'm
not yet 'duchess' enough not to regret it. However, it can be replaced.
If there were nothing else--but come, come, you're standing as still as
a statue."

He mechanically obeyed, surprised at the sudden change in her
expression, and they walked on a short distance farther. "Yes, indeed,"
she said as if to herself, "in other things too, I might take my
present equals in rank for a pattern. It's very bad style to have any
feelings at all, especially to speak of them, and to trouble old
friends with them. But you must be lenient. I exhausted these
ari