ll early hour, a young woman alighted, her head muffled in
a silk hood. When the servants announced Madame Vanel to Madame de
Belliere, the latter was engaged, or rather was absorbed, in reading
a letter, which she hurriedly concealed. She had hardly finished her
morning toilette, her maid being still in the next room. At the name--at
the footsteps of Marguerite Vanel, Madame de Belliere ran to meet her.
She fancied she could detect in her friend's eyes a brightness which was
neither that of health nor of pleasure. Marguerite embraced her, pressed
her hands, and hardly allowed her time to speak. "Dearest," she
said, "have you forgotten me? Have you quite given yourself up to the
pleasures of the court?"

"I have not even seen the marriage _fetes_."

"What are you doing with yourself, then?"

"I am getting ready to leave for Belliere."

"For Belliere?"

"Yes."

"You are becoming rustic in your tastes, then; I delight to see you so
disposed. But you are pale."

"No, I am perfectly well."

"So much the better; I was becoming uneasy about you. You do not know
what I have been told."

"People say so many things."

"Yes, but this is very singular."

"How well you know how to excite curiosity, Marguerite."

"Well, I was afraid of vexing you."

"Never; you have yourself always admired me for my evenness of temper."

"Well, then, it is said that--no, I shall never be able to tell you."

"Do not let us talk about it, then," said Madame de Belliere, who
detected the ill-nature that was concealed by all these prefaces, yet
felt the most anxious curiosity on the subject.

"Well, then, my dear marquise, it is said, for some time past, you no
longer continue to regret Monsieur de Belliere as you used to."

"It is an ill-natured report, Marguerite. I do regret, and shall always
regret, my husband; but it is now two years since he died. I am only
twenty-eight years old, and my grief at his loss ought not always to
control every action and thought of my life. You, Marguerite, who are
the model of a wife, would not believe me if I were to say so."

"Why not? Your heart is so soft and yielding," she said, spitefully.

"Yours is so, too, Marguerite, and yet I did not perceive that you
allowed yourself to be overcome by grief when your heart was wounded."
These words were in direct allusion to Marguerite's rupture with the
superintendent, and were also a veiled but direct reproach made against
her friend's heart.

A