alley; the rains, the brooks, the torrents hie to it, the
trees fall upon its surface, so do the flowers, the gravel of its
shores, the rocks of the summits; storms and the loitering tribute of
the crystal streams alike increase it. Yes, when love comes all comes to
love!

The first great danger over, the countess and I grew accustomed to
illness. In spite of the confusion which the care of the sick entails,
the count's room, once so untidy, was now clean and inviting. Soon
we were like two beings flung upon a desert island, for not only do
anxieties isolate, but they brush aside as petty the conventions of the
world. The welfare of the sick man obliged us to have points of contact
which no other circumstances would have authorized. Many a time our
hands, shy or timid formerly, met in some service that we rendered to
the count--was I not there to sustain and help my Henriette? Absorbed
in a duty comparable to that of a soldier at the pickets, she forgot
to eat; then I served her, sometimes on her lap, a hasty meal which
necessitated a thousand little attentions. We were like children at a
grave. She would order me sharply to prepare whatever might ease the
sick man's suffering; she employed me in a hundred petty ways. During
the time when actual danger obscured, as it does during the battle, the
subtile distinctions which characterize the facts of ordinary life,
she necessarily laid aside the reserve which all women, even the most
unconventional, preserve in their looks and words and actions before the
world or their own family. At the first chirping of the birds she would
come to relieve my watch, wearing a morning garment which revealed to
me once more the dazzling treasures that in my folly I had treated as my
own. Always dignified, nay imposing, she could still be familiar.

Thus it came to pass that we found ourselves unconsciously intimate,
half-married as it were. She showed herself nobly confiding, as sure of
me as she was of herself. I was thus taken deeper and deeper into her
heart. The countess became once more my Henriette, Henriette constrained
to love with increasing strength the friend who endeavored to be her
second soul. Her hand unresistingly met mine at the least solicitation;
my eyes were permitted to follow with delight the lines of her beauty
during the long hours when we listened to the count's breathing, without
driving her from their sight. The meagre pleasures which we allowed
ourselves--sympa