hysician raised his eyes to heaven.

"Adieu, monsieur," said the marquis, pressing his hand. "My friend is
expecting me. He will soon come to you."

"Then it was really she!" cried de Sucy at d'Albon's first words. "Ah!
I still doubted it," he added, a few tears falling from his eyes, which
were habitually stern.

"Yes, it is the Comtesse de Vandieres," replied the marquis.

The colonel rose abruptly from his bed and began to dress.

"Philippe!" cried his friend, "are you mad?"

"I am no longer ill," replied the colonel, simply. "This news has
quieted my suffering. What pain can I feel when I think of Stephanie? I
am going to the Bons-Hommes, to see her, speak to her, cure her. She is
free. Well, happiness will smile upon us--or Providence is not in
this world. Think you that that poor woman could hear my voice and not
recover reason?"

"She has already seen you and not recognized you," said his friend,
gently, for he felt the danger of Philippe's excited hopes, and tried to
cast a salutary doubt upon them.

The colonel quivered; then he smiled, and made a motion of incredulity.
No one dared to oppose his wish, and within a very short time he reached
the old priory.

"Where is she?" he cried, on arriving.

"Hush!" said her uncle, "she is sleeping. See, here she is."

Philippe then saw the poor insane creature lying on a bench in the sun.
Her head was protected from the heat by a forest of hair which fell in
tangled locks over her face. Her arms hung gracefully to the ground; her
body lay easily posed like that of a doe; her feet were folded under her
without effort; her bosom rose and fell at regular intervals; her skin,
her complexion, had that porcelain whiteness, which we admire so much in
the clear transparent faces of children. Standing motionless beside
her, Genevieve held in her hand a branch which Stephanie had doubtless
climbed a tall poplar to obtain, and the poor idiot was gently waving
it above her sleeping companion, to chase away the flies and cool the
atmosphere.

The peasant-woman gazed at Monsieur Fanjat and the colonel; then, like
an animal which recognizes its master, she turned her head slowly to
the countess, and continued to watch her, without giving any sign
of surprise or intelligence. The air was stifling; the stone bench
glittered in the sunlight; the meadow exhaled to heaven those impish
vapors which dance and dart above the herbage like silvery dust; but
Genevieve seemed not to