at
cause, in quitting his home and his young and beautiful wife; for I must
tell you, as indeed I ought to have told you before, he had been but a
few weeks married to the lovely Alice de Franchemont, the only daughter
of the old Graf de Franchemont, of whose castle you may see the ruins
near Chaude Fontaine.'

I nodded assent, and she went on.

'Of course you can imagine the dreadful grief of the young countess when
her husband broke to her his determination. If I were a novelist I'd
tell you of tears and entreaties and sighs and faintings, of promises
and pledges and vows, and so forth; for, indeed, it was a very sorrowful
piece of business, as she didn't at all fancy passing some three or four
years alone in the old keep at Bouvigne, with no society, not one single
friend to speak to. At first, indeed, she would not hear of it; and it
was only at length when Henri de Bethune undertook to plead for him--for
he kindly remained several days at the chateau, to assist his friend at
this conjuncture--that she gave way, and consented. Still, her consent
was wrung from her against her convictions, and she was by no means
satisfied that the arguments she yielded to were a whit too sound.
And this, let me remark, _en passant_, is a most dangerous species
of assent, when given by a lady; and one she always believes to be
something of the nature of certain Catholic vows, which are only binding
while you believe them reasonable and just.'

'Is that really so?' interrupted I. 'Do you, indeed, give me so low a
standard of female fidelity as this?'

'If women are sometimes false,' replied she, 'it is because men are
never true; but I must go on with my tale.--Away went Count Philip, and
with him his friend De Bethune--the former, if the fact were known, just
as low-spirited, when the time came, as the countess herself. But, then,
he had the double advantage that he had a friend to talk with and make
participator of his sorrows, besides being the one leaving, not left.'

'I don't know,' interrupted I at this moment, 'that you are right there;
I think that the associations which cling to the places where we have
been happy are a good requital for the sorrowful memories they may call
up. I 'd rather linger around the spot consecrated by the spirit of past
pleasure, and dream over again, hour by hour, day by day, the bliss
I knew there, than break up the charm of such memories by the vulgar
incidents of travel and the commonplace a