ill my death. He sends you to me
as he sends his breath to his creatures; as he pours the rain of
his clouds upon a parched earth,--tell me! tell me! Do you love me
sacredly?"

"Sacredly."

"For ever?"

"For ever."

"As a virgin Mary, hidden behind her veil, beneath her white crown."

"As a virgin visible."

"As a sister?"

"As a sister too dearly loved."

"With chivalry and without hope?"

"With chivalry and with hope."

"As if you were still twenty years of age, and wearing that absurd blue
coat?"

"Oh better far! I love you thus, and I also love you"--she looked at me
with keen apprehension--"as you loved your aunt."

"I am happy! You dispel my terrors," she said, returning towards the
family, who were surprised at our private conference. "Be still a child
at Clochegourde--for you are one still. It may be your policy to be a
man with the king, but here, let me tell you, monsieur, your best policy
is to remain a child. As a child you shall be loved. I can resist a man,
but to a child I can refuse nothing, nothing! He can ask for nothing I
will not give him.--Our secrets are all told," she said, looking at
the count with a mischievous air, in which her girlish, natural self
reappeared. "I leave you now; I must go and dress."

Never for three years had I heard her voice so richly happy. For the
first time I heard those swallow cries, the infantile notes of which I
told you. I had brought Jacques a hunting outfit, and for Madeleine a
work-box--which her mother afterwards used. The joy of the two children,
delighted to show their presents to each other, seemed to annoy the
count, always dissatisfied when attention was withdrawn from himself. I
made a sign to Madeleine and followed her father, who wanted to talk to
me of his ailments.

"My poor Felix," he said, "you see how happy and well they all are. I am
the shadow on the picture; all their ills are transferred to me, and
I bless God that it is so. Formerly I did not know what was the matter
with me; now I know. The orifice of my stomach is affected; I can digest
nothing."

"How do you come to be as wise as the professor of a medical school?"
I asked, laughing. "Is your doctor indiscreet enough to tell you such
things?"

"God forbid I should consult a doctor," he cried, showing the aversion
most imaginary invalids feel for the medical profession.

I now listened to much crazy talk, in the course of which he made the
most absurd confidences,--com