so.

When I met the countess that morning, and found her pale and depressed
like one who has not slept all night, I was conscious of exercising the
instinctive perception given to hearts still fresh and generous to show
them the true bearing of actions little regarded by the world at large,
but judged as criminal by lofty spirits. Like a child going down a
precipice in play and gathering flowers, who sees with dread that it
can never climb that height again, feels itself alone, with night
approaching, and hears the howls of animals, so I now knew that she and
I were separated by a universe. A wail arose within our souls like an
echo of that woeful "Consummatum est" heard in the churches on Good
Friday at the hour the Saviour died,--a dreadful scene which awes young
souls whose first love is religion. All Henriette's illusions were
killed at one blow; her heart had endured its passion. She did not look
at me; she refused me the light that for six long years had shone upon
my life. She knew well that the spring of the effulgent rays shed by our
eyes was in our souls, to which they served as pathways to reach
each other, to blend them in one, meeting, parting, playing, like two
confiding women who tell each other all. Bitterly I felt the wrong of
bringing beneath this roof, where pleasure was unknown, a face on which
the wings of pleasure had shaken their prismatic dust. If, the night
before, I had allowed Lady Dudley to depart alone, if I had then
returned to Clochegourde, where, it may be, Henriette awaited me,
perhaps--perhaps Madame de Mortsauf might not so cruelly have
resolved to be my sister. But now she paid me many ostentatious
attentions,--playing her part vehemently for the very purpose of not
changing it. During breakfast she showed me a thousand civilities,
humiliating attentions, caring for me as though I were a sick man whose
fate she pitied.

"You were out walking early," said the count; "I hope you have brought
back a good appetite, you whose stomach is not yet destroyed."

This remark, which brought the smile of a sister to Henriette's lips,
completed my sense of the ridicule of my position. It was impossible to
be at Clochegourde by day and Saint-Cyr by night. During the day I felt
how difficult it was to become the friend of a woman we have long loved.
The transition, easy enough when years have brought it about, is like an
illness in youth. I was ashamed; I cursed the pleasure Lady Dudley gave
me;