a
happy woman, the sight of their great knife, ready to fall upon my neck,
would not have driven me to accept a part in this tragedy--for it is
a tragedy. But now," she said, with a gesture of disgust, "if it were
countermanded, I should instantly fling myself into the Sarthe. It would
not be destroying life, for I have never lived."

"Oh, Saint Anne of Auray, forgive her!"

"What are you so afraid of? You know very well that the dull round of
domestic life gives no opportunity for my passions. That would be bad in
most women, I admit; but my soul is made of a higher sensibility and can
bear great tests. I might have been, perhaps, a gentle being like you.
Why, why have I risen above or sunk beneath the level of my sex? Ah!
the wife of Bonaparte is a happy woman! Yes, I shall die young, for I
am gay, as you say,--gay at this pleasure-party, where there is blood to
drink, as that poor Danton used to say. There, there, forget what I
am saying; it is the woman of fifty who speaks. Thank God! the girl of
fifteen is still within me."

The young country-girl shuddered. She alone knew the fiery, impetuous
nature of her mistress. She alone was initiated into the mysteries of a
soul rich with enthusiasm, into the secret emotions of a being who, up
to this time, had seen life pass her like a shadow she could not grasp,
eager as she was to do so. After sowing broadcast with full hands and
harvesting nothing, this woman was still virgin in soul, but irritated
by a multitude of baffled desires. Weary of a struggle without an
adversary, she had reached in her despair to the point of preferring
good to evil, if it came in the form of enjoyment; evil to good, if
it offered her some poetic emotion; misery to mediocrity, as something
nobler and higher; the gloomy and mysterious future of present death to
a life without hopes or even without sufferings. Never in any heart was
so much powder heaped ready for the spark, never were so many riches
for love to feed on; no daughter of Eve was ever moulded, with a greater
mixture of gold in her clay. Francine, like an angel of earth, watched
over this being whose perfections she adored, believing that she obeyed
a celestial mandate in striving to bring that spirit back among the
choir of seraphim whence it was banished for the sin of pride.

"There is the clock-tower of Alencon," said the horseman, riding up to
the carriage.

"I see it," replied the young lady, in a cold tone.

"Ah, well