ould not hear what she was saying to me--I believe her words were full
of affection. Then, as if overcome with fatigue, she let her head fall
back on the pillow and closed her eyes.

"I have some work to do," said the chevalier to me. "Stay here with her;
but do not make her talk too much, for she is still very weak."

This recommendation really seemed a sarcasm. Edmee was pretending to be
sleepy, perhaps to conceal some of the embarrassment that weighed on her
heart; and, as for myself, I felt so incapable of overcoming her reserve
that it was in reality a kindness to counsel silence.

The chevalier opened a door at one end of the room and closed it after
him; but, as I could hear him cough from time to time, I gathered
that his study was separated from his daughter's room only by a wooden
partition. Still, it was bliss to be alone with her for a few moments,
as long as she appeared to be asleep. She did not see me, and I could
gaze on her at will. So pale was she that she seemed as white as her
muslin dressing-gown, or as her satin slippers with their trimming of
swan's down. Her delicate, transparent hand was to my eyes like some
unknown jewel. Never before had I realized what a woman was; beauty for
me had hitherto meant youth and health, together with a sort of manly
hardihood. Edmee, in her riding-habit, as I first beheld her, had in
a measure displayed such beauty, and I had understood her better then.
Now, as I studied her afresh, my very ideas, which were beginning to
get a little light from without, all helped to make this second
_tete-a-tete_ very different from the first.

But the strange, uneasy pleasure I experienced in gazing on her was
disturbed by the arrival of a duenna, a certain Mademoiselle Leblanc,
who performed the duties of lady's maid in Edmee's private apartments,
and filled the post of companion in the drawing-room. Perhaps she had
received orders from her mistress not to leave us. Certain it is that
she took her place by the side of the invalid's chair in such a way as
to present to my disappointed gaze her own long, meagre back, instead of
Edmee's beautiful face. Then she took some work out of her pocket, and
quietly began to knit. Meanwhile the birds continued to warble, the
chevalier to cough, Edmee to sleep or to pretend to sleep, while I
remained at the other end of the room with my head bent over the prints
in a book that I was holding upside down.

After some time I became aware th