the stillness was like the grave!

Margot became so fascinated by her that she would not lose one single
night when she performed. It was at first a pleasure,--it then became
a passion with her. The real life she mixed in became poor, weak, and
uninteresting beside the world of intense feeling the stage presented.
The one seemed all false, unreal, and fictitious; the other truthful,
and addressing itself to the heart direct.

Mademoiselle Mars herself at length remarked the lovely girl who, with
eager gaze and steadfast, sat each night in the same place, indifferent
to everything save the business of the scene. She felt the power she
exercised over her, and saw how her whole nature was her captive. Once
or twice their eyes actually met, and Margot felt at the moment that she
was beneath the glance of one who read her very thoughts, and knew each
working of her heart.

A few nights after this, they met in society, and Mademoiselle Mars,
without introduction of any kind, approached and spoke to her. The
words were few and commonplace,--some half apology for a liberty, an
expression of pleasure at meeting her, and a kind of thankful return for
the attention by which she marked her. She saw the attraction which the
stage possessed for her, and made it the subject of their conversation.
The great actress was herself an enthusiast about her art, and when
she spoke of it, her genius kindled at once, and her words rose to high
eloquence. She told Margot the whole story of her own devotion to
the stage,--how she had been destined to the cloister, and that an
accidental visit to the theatre at Nancy had determined the entire
fortunes of her life. "I felt within me," said she, "a power of
expression that I could not bear to bury beneath the veil of the nun.
The poetry that stirred my heart should find its utterance; nor could
I endure the stormy conflict of passion that raged within me, save in
giving it a form and a shape. I became an actress for myself; and hence
perhaps why I have met with the applause of others."

Margot's acquaintance thus casually formed ripened into intimacy, and
quickly into a close friendship. The ritual that prescribed the ordeal
through which she was going, ordained that it should be restricted by
scarcely a limit. The novice was really to be her own mistress for a
brief season in that world she was to leave so soon and forever.

She now accompanied Mademoiselle Mars not only into the wide circle o