t know him. She knew nothing of him, of his actions or his
thoughts; she could not even have determined whether he possessed
talent. Perhaps he was even more lacking in qualities of the heart
than of the mind. And thus she gave way to every imagining, her heart
full of bitterness, ever finding herself confronted by her ignorance,
that barrier which separated her from Henri, and checked her in her
efforts to know him. She knew nothing, she would never know anything.
She pictured him, hissing out those burning words, and creating within
her the one trouble which had, till now, broken in on the quiet
happiness of her life. Whence had he sprung to lay her life desolate
in this fashion? She suddenly thought that but six weeks before she
had had no existence for him, and this thought was insufferable.
Angels in heaven! to live no more for one another, to pass each other
without recognition, perhaps never to meet again! In her despair she
clasped her hands, and her eyes filled with tears.

Then Helene gazed fixedly on the towers of Notre-Dame in the far
distance. A ray of light from between two clouds tinged them with
gold. Her brain was heavy, as though surcharged with all the
tumultuous thoughts hurtling within it. It made her suffer; she would
fain have concerned herself with the sight of Paris, and have sought
to regain her life-peace by turning on that sea of roofs the tranquil
glances of past days. To think that at other times, at the same hour,
the infinitude of the city--in the stillness of a lovely twilight--had
lulled her into tender musing!

At present Paris was brightening in the sunshine. After the first ray
had fallen on Notre-Dame, others had followed, streaming across the
city. The luminary, dipping in the west, rent the clouds asunder, and
the various districts spread out, motly with ever-changing lights and
shadows. For a time the whole of the left bank was of a leaden hue,
while the right was speckled with spots of light which made the verge
of the river resemble the skin of some huge beast of prey. Then these
resemblances varied and vanished at the mercy of the wind, which drove
the clouds before it. Above the burnished gold of the housetops dark
patches floated, all in the same direction and with the same gentle
and silent motion. Some of them were very large, sailing along with
all the majestic grace of an admiral's ship, and surrounded by smaller
ones, preserving the regular order of a squadron in line