ater, never the same in its fitful changes. All
their surroundings seemed to dream for them, all things smiled upon
them.

Then weighty matters recalled M. de Nueil to France. His father and
brother died, and he was obliged to leave Geneva. The lovers bought the
house; and if they could have had their way, they would have removed the
hills piecemeal, drawn off the lake with a siphon, and taken everything
away with them.

Mme. de Beauseant followed M. de Nueil. She realized her property, and
bought a considerable estate near Manerville, adjoining Gaston's
lands, and here they lived together; Gaston very graciously giving
up Manerville to his mother for the present in consideration of the
bachelor freedom in which she left him.

Mme. de Beauseant's estate was close to a little town in one of the
most picturesque spots in the valley of the Auge. Here the lovers raised
barriers between themselves and social intercourse, barriers which no
creature could overleap, and here the happy days of Switzerland were
lived over again. For nine whole years they knew happiness which it
serves no purpose to describe; happiness which may be divined from the
outcome of the story by those whose souls can comprehend poetry and
prayer in their infinite manifestations.

All this time Mme. de Beauseant's husband, the present Marquis (his
father and elder brother having died), enjoyed the soundest health.
There is no better aid to life than a certain knowledge that our demise
would confer a benefit on some fellow-creature. M. de Beauseant was
one of those ironical and wayward beings who, like holders of
life-annuities, wake with an additional sense of relish every morning to
a consciousness of good health. For the rest, he was a man of the world,
somewhat methodical and ceremonious, and a calculator of consequences,
who could make a declaration of love as quietly as a lackey announces
that "Madame is served."

This brief biographical notice of his lordship the Marquis de Beauseant
is given to explain the reasons why it was impossible for the Marquise
to marry M. de Nueil.

So, after a nine years' lease of happiness, the sweetest agreement to
which a woman ever put her hand, M. de Nueil and Mme. de Beauseant
were still in a position quite as natural and quite as false as at the
beginning of their adventure. And yet they had reached a fatal crisis,
which may be stated as clearly as any problem in mathematics.

Mme. la Comtesse de Nueil, Ga