some one of Marguerite’s hopes, and illumined the enchanted regions of love with new lights that chased away the clouds and brought to view the serene heavens, giving color to the fruitful riches hidden away in the shadow of their lives.  More at his ease, the young man could display the seductive qualities of his heart until now discreetly hidden, the expansive gaiety of his age, the simplicity which comes of a life of study, the treasures of a delicate mind that life has not adulterated, the innocent joyousness which goes so well with loving youth.  His soul and Marguerite’s understood each other better; they went together to the depths of their hearts and found in each the same thoughts,—­pearls of equal lustre, sweet fresh harmonies like those the legends tell of beneath the waves, which fascinate the divers.  They made themselves known to one another by an interchange of thought, a reciprocal introspection which bore the signs, in both, of exquisite sensibility.  It was done without false shame, but not without mutual coquetry.  The two hours which Emmanuel spent with the sisters and old Martha enabled Marguerite to accept the life of anguish and renunciation on which she had entered.  This artless, progressive love was her support.  In all his testimonies of affection Emmanuel showed the natural grace that is so winning, the sweet yet subtile mind which breaks the uniformity of sentiment as the facets of a diamond relieve, by their many-sided fires, the monotony of the stone,—­adorable wisdom, the secret of loving hearts, which makes a woman pliant to the artistic hand that gives new life to old, old forms, and refreshes with novel modulations the phrases of love.  Love is not only a sentiment, it is an art.  Some simple word, a trifling vigilance, a nothing, reveals to a woman the great, the divine artist who shall touch her heart and yet not blight it.  The more Emmanuel was free to utter himself, the more charming were the expressions of his love.

“I have tried to get here before Pierquin,” he said to Marguerite one evening.  “He is bringing some bad news; I would rather you heard it from me.  Your father has sold all the timber in your forest at Waignies to speculators, who have resold it to dealers.  The trees are already felled, and the logs are carried away.  Monsieur Claes received three hundred thousand francs in cash as a first instalment of the price, which he has used towards paying his bills in Paris; but to clear off his debts entirely he has been forced to assign a hundred thousand francs of the three hundred thousand still due to him on the purchase-money.”

Pierquin entered at this moment.