of her elongated face, inward fires were issuing from it like the fluid mist which seems to flame above the fields of a hot day.  Her hollow temples, her sunken cheeks showed the interior formation of the face, and the smile upon her whitened lips vaguely resembled the grin of death.  Her robe, which was folded across her breast, showed the emaciation of her beautiful figure.  The expression of her head said plainly that she knew she was changed, and that the thought filled her with bitterness.  She was no longer the arch Henriette, nor the sublime and saintly Madame de Mortsauf, but the nameless something of Bossuet struggling against annihilation, driven to the selfish battle of life against death by hunger and balked desire.  I took her hand, which was dry and burning, to kiss it, as I seated myself beside her.  She guessed my sorrowful surprise from the very effort that I made to hide it.  Her discolored lips drew up from her famished teeth trying to form a smile,—­the forced smile with which we strive to hide either the irony of vengeance, the expectation of pleasure, the intoxication of our souls, or the fury of disappointment.

“Ah, my poor Felix, this is death,” she said, “and you do not like death; odious death, of which every human creature, even the boldest lover, feels a horror.  This is the end of love; I knew it would be so.  Lady Dudley will never see you thus surprised at the change in her.  Ah! why have I so longed for you, Felix?  You have come at last, and I reward your devotion by the same horrible sight that made the Comte de Rance a Trappist.  I, who hoped to remain ever beautiful and noble in your memory, to live there eternally a lily, I it is who destroy your illusions!  True love cannot calculate.  But stay; do not go, stay.  Monsieur Origet said I was much better this morning; I shall recover.  Your looks will bring me back to life.  When I regain a little strength, when I can take some nourishment, I shall be beautiful again.  I am scarcely thirty-five, there are many years of happiness before me,—­happiness renews our youth; yes, I must know happiness!  I have made delightful plans,—­we will leave Clochegourde and go to Italy.”

Tears filled my eyes and I turned to the window as if to look at the flowers.  The abbe followed me hastily, and bending over the bouquet whispered, “No tears!”

“Henriette, do you no longer care for our dear valley,” I said, as if to explain my sudden movement.

“Oh, yes!” she said, turning her forehead to my lips with a fond motion.  “But without you it is fatal to me,—­without thee,” she added, putting her burning lips to my ear and whispering the words like a sigh.