feel this all-consuming heat.

The colonel pressed the hand of the doctor violently in his own. Tears
rolled from his eyes along his manly cheeks, and fell to the earth at
the feet of his Stephanie.

"Monsieur," said the uncle, "for two years past, my heart is broken day
by day. Soon you will be like me. You may not always weep, but you will
always feel your sorrow."

The two men understood each other; and again, pressing each other's
hands, they remained motionless, contemplating the exquisite calmness
which sleep had cast upon that graceful creature. From time to time
she gave a sigh, and that sigh, which had all the semblance of
sensibilities, made the unhappy colonel tremble with hope.

"Alas!" said Monsieur Fanjat, "do not deceive yourself, monsieur; there
is no meaning in her sigh."

Those who have ever watched for hours with delight the sleep of one
who is tenderly beloved, whose eyes will smile to them at waking, can
understand the sweet yet terrible emotion that shook the colonel's soul.
To him, this sleep was an illusion; the waking might be death, death in
its most awful form. Suddenly, a little goat jumped in three bounds to
the bench, and smelt at Stephanie, who waked at the sound. She sprang to
her feet, but so lightly that the movement did not frighten the freakish
animal; then she caught sight of Philippe, and darted away, followed by
her four-footed friend, to a hedge of elders; there she uttered the same
little cry like a frightened bird, which the two men had heard near the
other gate. Then she climbed an acacia, and nestling into its tufted
top, she watched the stranger with the inquisitive attention of the
forest birds.

"Adieu, adieu, adieu," she said, without the soul communicating one
single intelligent inflexion to the word.

It was uttered impassively, as the bird sings his note.

"She does not recognize me!" cried the colonel, in despair. "Stephanie!
it is Philippe, thy Philippe, PHILIPPE!"

And the poor soldier went to the acacia; but when he was a few steps
from it, the countess looked at him, as if defying him, although a
slight expression of fear seemed to flicker in her eye; then, with a
single bound she sprang from the acacia to a laburnum, and thence to a
Norway fir, where she darted from branch to branch with extraordinary
agility.

"Do not pursue her," said Monsieur Fanjat to the colonel, "or you will
arouse an aversion which might become insurmountable. I will help you t