e. The right-hand shelves were wholly
French, from quaint volumes of troubadours' poetry to Alfred de Musset
and De Maupassant. It was here Paul spent most of his time when at the
Abbey.

The meet had been rather a long way off that morning, and he had left
before the arrival of the post-bag from the neighbouring town. Mrs. de
Vaux had distributed the letters, and the one she had spoken of lay
at the edge of the table. He stretched out his hand to take it
up--without any presentiments, without any thought as to whom it might
be from. An invitation, doubtless, or a begging letter he imagined, as
he caught sight of the large square envelope. But suddenly, before his
fingers had closed upon it, he started and stood quite still, leaning
over the back of his chair. His heart was beating fast, and there was
a mist before his eyes--a mist through which he saw, as though in
a dream, the walls of his library melt away, to be replaced by the
dainty interior of that little room in Grey Street, with all the dim
luxury of its soft colouring and adornment. He saw her too, the
centre of the picture--saw her as she seemed to him before that final
scene--saw her half-kneeling, half-crouching, before him, with her
beautiful dark eyes, yearning and passionate, fixed upon his in mute,
but wonderfully eloquent, pleading. Oh! it was folly, but it was
sweet, marvellously sweet. Every nerve seemed thrilled with the
exquisite pleasure of the memory so suddenly called up to him, and his
lips quivered with the thought of what he might have said to her.
The strange, voluptuous perfume which crept upwards from that letter
seemed in a measure to have paralysed him. He stood there like a man
entranced, with the dim firelight on one side and the low horned moon
through the high window on his left, casting a strange, vivid light
on his pale face--paler even than usual against the scarlet of his
hunting-coat. That letter! What could it contain? Was it a recall, or
a fresh torrent of anger? He stood there quite still, leaning over the
back of the high-backed oak chair emblazoned with the De Vaux arms,
and making no motion towards taking it up.

A sound from outside--the low rumbling of a gong--roused him at last,
and he pushed the chair hastily away from him. His first impulse
was one of anger, of shame, that he, a strong man, as he had deemed
himself, should have been so moved by a simple flood of memories.
It seemed ignoble to him and a frown gathere