of this change. The recollection of Corentin came
to her like a flash, and reminded her suddenly of her real destiny.
For the first time since the morning she reflected seriously on her
position. Until then she had yielded herself up to the delight of
loving, without a thought of the past or of the future. Unable to bear
the agony of her mind, she sought, with the patience of love, to obtain
a look from the young man's eyes, and when she did so her paleness and
the quiver in her face had so penetrating an influence over him that he
wavered; but the softening was momentary.

"Are you ill, mademoiselle?" he said, but his voice had no gentleness;
the very question, the look, the gesture, all served to convince her
that the events of this day belonged to a mirage of the soul which was
fast disappearing like mists before the wind.

"Am I ill?" she replied, with a forced laugh. "I was going to ask you
the same question."

"I supposed you understood each other," remarked Madame du Gua with
specious kindliness.

Neither the young man nor Mademoiselle de Verneuil replied. The girl,
doubly insulted, was angered at feeling her powerful beauty powerless.
She knew she could discover the cause of the present situation the
moment she chose to do so; but, for the first time, perhaps, a woman
recoiled before a secret. Human life is sadly fertile in situations
where, as a result of either too much meditation or of some catastrophe,
our thoughts seem to hold to nothing; they have no substance, no point
of departure, and the present has no hooks by which to hold to the past
or fasten on the future. This was Mademoiselle de Verneuil's condition
at the present moment. Leaning back in the carriage, she sat there like
an uprooted shrub. Silent and suffering, she looked at no one, wrapped
herself in her grief, and buried herself so completely in the unseen
world, the refuge of the miserable, that she saw nothing around her.
Crows crossed the road in the air above them cawing, but although,
like all strong hearts, hers had a superstitious corner, she paid no
attention to the omen. The party travelled on in silence. "Already
parted?" Mademoiselle de Verneuil was saying to herself. "Yet no one
about us has uttered one word. Could it be Corentin? It is not his
interest to speak. Who can have come to this spot and accused me? Just
loved, and already abandoned! I sow attraction, and I reap contempt. Is
it my perpetual fate to see happiness and e