l sin, as soon as the aid of the
supernatural had departed. In the dull silence of this protected corner
she heard this evil inheritance come back, howling triumphant over
everything. If in ten minutes more no help came to her from figurative
forces, if things around her did not rouse up and sustain her, she would
certainly succumb and go to her ruin. "My God! My God! Why have You
abandoned me?" Still kneeling on her bed, slight and delicate, it seemed
to her as if she were dying.

Each time, until now, at the moment of her greatest distress she had
been sustained by a certain freshness. It was the Eternal Grace which
had pity upon her, and restored her illusions. She jumped out on to the
floor with her bare feet, and ran eagerly to the window. Then at last
she heard the voices rising again; invisible wings brushed against her
hair, the people of the "Golden Legend" came out from the trees and the
stones, and crowded around her. Her purity, her goodness, all that which
resembled her in Nature, returned to her and saved her. Now she was no
longer afraid, for she knew that she was watched over. Agnes had come
back with the wandering, gentle virgins, and in the air she breathed
was a sweet calmness, which, notwithstanding her intense sadness,
strengthened her in her resolve to die rather than fail in her duty or
break her promise. At last, quite exhausted, she crept back into
her bed, falling asleep again with the fear of the morrow's trials,
constantly tormented by the idea that she must succumb in the end, if
her weakness thus increased each day.

In fact, a languor gained fearfully upon Angelique since she thought
Felicien no longer loved her. She was deeply wounded and silent,
uncomplaining; she seemed to be dying hourly. At first it showed itself
by weariness. She would have an attack of want of breath, when she was
forced to drop her thread, and for a moment remain with her eyes half
closed, seeing nothing, although apparently looking straight before her.
Then she left off eating, scarcely taking even a little milk; and she
either hid her bread or gave it to the neighbours' chickens, that she
need not make her parents anxious. A physician having been called,
found no acute disease, but considering her life too solitary, simply
recommended a great deal of exercise. It was like a gradual fading away
of her whole being; a disappearing by slow degrees, an obliterating
of her physique from its immaterial beauty. Her form