e seemed to
gather herself together, and, at first, looked vaguely at the singular
scene. For an instant, as rapid as the lightning's flash, her eyes had
that lucidity, devoid of mind, which we admire in the eye of birds; then
passing her hand across her brow with the keen expression of one who
meditates, she contemplated the living memory of a past scene spread
before her, and, turning quickly to Philippe, she SAW HIM. An awful
silence reigned in the crowd. The colonel gasped, but dared not speak;
the doctor wept. Stephanie's sweet face colored faintly; then, from tint
to tint, it returned to the brightness of youth, till it glowed with
a beautiful crimson. Life and happiness, lighted by intelligence, came
nearer and nearer like a conflagration. Convulsive trembling rose from
her feet to her heart. Then these phenomena seemed to blend in one as
Stephanie's eyes cast forth a celestial ray, the flame of a living
soul. She lived, she thought! She shuddered, with fear perhaps, for God
himself unloosed that silent tongue, and cast anew His fires into that
long-extinguished soul. Human will came with its full electric torrent,
and vivified the body from which it had been driven.

"Stephanie!" cried the colonel.

"Oh! it is Philippe," said the poor countess.

She threw herself into the trembling arms that the colonel held out to
her, and the clasp of the lovers frightened the spectators. Stephanie
burst into tears. Suddenly her tears stopped, she stiffened as though
the lightning had touched her, and said in a feeble voice,--

"Adieu, Philippe; I love thee, adieu!"

"Oh! she is dead," cried the colonel, opening his arms.

The old doctor received the inanimate body of his niece, kissed it as
though he were a young man, and carrying it aside, sat down with it
still in his arms on a pile of wood. He looked at the countess and
placed his feeble trembling hand upon her heart. That heart no longer
beat.

"It is true," he said, looking up at the colonel, who stood motionless,
and then at Stephanie, on whom death was placing that resplendent
beauty, that fugitive halo, which is, perhaps, a pledge of the glorious
future--"Yes, she is dead."

"Ah! that smile," cried Philippe, "do you see that smile? Can it be
true?"

"She is turning cold," replied Monsieur Fanjat.

Monsieur de Sucy made a few steps to tear himself away from the sight;
but he stopped, whistled the air that Stephanie had known, and when she
did not come to h