hin a group of trees, the autumn foliage of which
was dropping to the breeze. The colonel sat down. Of her own accord
Stephanie placed herself on his knee. Philippe trembled with joy.

"Love," he said, kissing her hands passionately, "I am Philippe."

She looked at him with curiosity.

"Come," he said, pressing her to him, "dost thou feel my heart? It has
beaten for thee alone. I love thee ever. Philippe is not dead; he is
not dead, thou art on him, in his arms. Thou art MY Stephanie; I am thy
Philippe."

"Adieu," she said, "adieu."

The colonel quivered, for he fancied he saw his own excitement
communicated to his mistress. His heart-rending cry, drawn from him by
despair, that last effort of an eternal love, of a delirious passion,
was successful, the mind of his darling was awaking.

"Ah! Stephanie! Stephanie! we shall yet be happy."

She gave a cry of satisfaction, and her eyes brightened with a flash of
vague intelligence.

"She knows me!--Stephanie!"

His heart swelled; his eyelids were wet with tears. Then, suddenly, the
countess showed him a bit of sugar she had found in his pocket while
he was speaking to her. He had mistaken for human thought the amount
of reason required for a monkey's trick. Philippe dropped to the ground
unconscious. Monsieur Fanjat found the countess sitting on the colonel's
body. She was biting her sugar, and testifying her pleasure by pretty
gestures and affectations with which, had she her reason, she might have
imitated her parrot or her cat.

"Ah! my friend," said Philippe, when he came to his senses, "I die every
day, every moment! I love too well! I could still bear all, if, in
her madness, she had kept her woman's nature. But to see her always a
savage, devoid even of modesty, to see her--"

"You want opera madness, do you? something picturesque and pleasing,"
said the doctor, bitterly. "Your love and your devotion yield before
a prejudice. Monsieur, I have deprived myself for your sake of the sad
happiness of watching over my niece; I have left to you the pleasure of
playing with her; I have kept for myself the heaviest cares. While you
have slept, I have watched, I have--Go, monsieur, go! abandon her! leave
this sad refuge. I know how to live with that dear darling creature; I
comprehend her madness, I watch her gestures, I know her secrets. Some
day you will thank me for thus sending you away."

The colonel left the old monastery, never to return but once. The doct