lle. Gilberte could, from
the corner of her eye, have a glimpse of M. de Tregars. Evidently
he was not missing a single one of the words which she was addressing
to her mother. He was whiter than a sheet; and his face betrayed the
most intense anxiety.

This gave her the energy to curb the last revolts of her conscience.

"To answer was painful," she uttered; "and yet I--dared to answer
him. I said to him, 'I believe you, and I have faith in you.
Loyally and faithfully I shall await your success; but until then
we must be strangers to one another. To resort to ruse, deceit,
and falsehood would be unworthy of us. You surely would not expose
to a suspicion her who is to be your wife.'"

"Very well," approved Mme. Favoral; "only I did not know you were
so romantic."

She was laughing, the good lady, but not loud enough to prevent
Gilberte from hearing M. de Tregars' answer.

"Count de Villegre," said he, "my old friend, receive the oath which
I take to devote my life to her who has not doubted me. It is to-day
the 4th of May, 1870--on the 4th of May, 1873, I shall have
succeeded: I feel it, I will it, it must be!"

XV

It was done: Gilberte Favoral had just irrevocably disposed of
herself. Prosperous or wretched, her destiny henceforth was linked
with another. She had set the wheel in motion; and she could no
longer hope to control its direction, any more than the will can
pretend to alter the course of the ivory ball upon the surface of
the roulette-table. At the outset of this great storm of passion
which had suddenly surrounded her, she felt an immense surprise,
mingled with unexplained apprehensions and vague terrors.

Around her, apparently, nothing was changed. Father, mother,
brother, friends, gravitated mechanically in their accustomed orbits.
The same daily facts repeated themselves monotonous and regular as
the tick-tack of the clock.

And yet an event had occurred more prodigious for her than the moving
of a mountain.

Often during the weeks that followed, she would repeat to herself,
"Is it true, is it possible even?"

Or else she would run to a mirror to make sure once more that nothing
upon her face or in her eyes betrayed the secret that palpitated
within her.

The singularity of the situation was, moreover, well calculated to
trouble and confound her mind.

Mastered by circumstances, she had in utter disregard of all accepted
ideas, and of the commonest propriety, listened t