peering out into the gloom, I
perceived, stretched along the ground, the trunk of the pine which, for
two years, had hid from me the room where burned the fraternal light.
Before departing, I should at least catch a glimpse of the mysterious
being, who, probably unconsciously, had occupied so many of my restless
thoughts. I could not control a sad smile at the thought of the
disenchantment that awaited me on the morrow. I passed in review the
faces which were likely to appear at that window, and as the absurd is
mixed with almost every situation in life, I declare that this
bewildering question occurred to me: "Suppose it should be Lady Penock?"

I slept little, and arose at day-break. I was restless without daring to
acknowledge to myself the cause. It would have mortified me to have to
confess that there was room beside my grief for a childish curiosity, a
poetical fancy. What is man's heart made of? He bemoans himself, wraps a
cere-cloth around him and prepares to die, and a flitting bird or a
shining light suffices to divert him. I watched the sun redden the
house-tops. Paris still slept; no sound broke the stillness of the
slumbering city, but the distant roll of the early carts over the
stones. I looked long at the dear garret, which I saw for the first time
in the eye of day. The window had neither shutter nor blind, but a
double rose-colored curtain hung before it, mingling its tint with that
of the rising sun. That window, with neither plants nor running vines to
ornament it, had an air of refinement that charmed me. The house itself
looked honest. I wrote several letters to shorten the slow hours which
wearied my patience. Every shutter that opened startled me, and sent the
blood quickly back to my heart. My reason revolted against suck
childishness; but in spite of it, something within me refused to laugh
at my folly.

After some hours, I caught a glimpse of a hand furtively drawing aside
the rose-colored curtains. That timid hand could only belong to a woman;
a man would have drawn them back unceremoniously. She must, likewise, be
a young woman; the shade of the curtains indicated it. Evidently, only a
young woman would put pink curtains before a garret-window. Whereupon I
recalled to mind the little room where I had bade adieu to Louise before
leaving Richeport. I lived over again the scene in that poetic nook;
again I saw Louise as she appeared to me at that last interview, pale,
agitated, shedding silen