e mantilla. They stopped first at the
bench by the Paulownia, which was in full bloom.

It was a superb moonlight night. The moon, silvering the treetops, made
numberless flakes of light amid the dense foliage. The terraces, white
with moonbeams, where the Newfoundlands in their curly coats went to
and fro, watching the night butterflies, the smooth, deep waters of
the ponds, all shone with a mute, calm brilliance, as if reflected in
a silver mirror. Here and there glow-worms twinkled on the edges of the
greensward.

The two promenaders remained for a moment beneath the shade of the
Paulownia, sitting silent on the bench, lost in the dense darkness which
the moon makes where its rays do not reach. Suddenly they appeared in
the bright light, wrapped in a languishing embrace; then walked slowly
across the main avenue, and disappeared among the trees.

"I was sure of it!" said old Gardinois, recognizing them. Indeed, what
need had he to recognize them? Did not the silence of the dogs, the
aspect of the sleeping house, tell him more clearly than anything else
could, what species of impudent crime, unknown and unpunished, haunted
the avenues in his park by night? Be that as it may, the old peasant
was overjoyed by his discovery. He returned to bed without a
light, chuckling to himself, and in the little cabinet filled with
hunting-implements, whence he had watched them, thinking at first that
he had to do with burglars, the moon's rays shone upon naught save the
fowling-pieces hanging on the wall and the boxes of cartridges of all
sizes.

Sidonie and Georges had taken up the thread of their love at the corner
of the same avenue. The year that had passed, marked by hesitation, by
vague struggles, by fruitless resistance, seemed to have been only a
preparation for their meeting. And it must be said that, when once the
fatal step was taken, they were surprised at nothing so much as the
fact that they had postponed it so long. Georges Fromont especially was
seized by a mad passion. He was false to his wife, his best friend; he
was false to Risler, his partner, the faithful companion of his every
hour.

He felt a constant renewal, a sort of overflow of remorse, wherein his
passion was intensified by the magnitude of his sin. Sidonie became his
one engrossing thought, and he discovered that until then he had not
lived. As for her, her love was made up of vanity and spite. The thing
that she relished above all else was Claire