“I went,” she said, “to the gate of the sanctuary and asked his life of God.”

She had had visions, and she told them to me; but when she said, in that angelic voice of hers, these exquisite words, “While I slept my heart watched,” the count harshly interrupted her.

“That is to say, you were half crazy,” he cried.

She was silent, as deeply hurt as though it were a first wound; forgetting that for thirteen years this man had lost no chance to shoot his arrows into her heart.  Like a soaring bird struck on the wing by vulgar shot, she sank into a dull depression; then she roused herself.

“How is it, monsieur,” she said, “that no word of mine ever finds favor in your sight?  Have you no indulgence for my weakness,—­no comprehension of me as a woman?”

She stopped short.  Already she regretted the murmur, and measured the future by the past; how could she expect comprehension?  Had she not drawn upon herself some virulent attack?  The blue veins of her temples throbbed; she shed no tears, but the color of her eyes faded.  Then she looked down, that she might not see her pain reflected on my face, her feelings guessed, her soul wooed by my soul; above all, not see the sympathy of young love, ready like a faithful dog to spring at the throat of whoever threatened his mistress, without regard to the assailant’s strength or quality.  At such cruel moments the count’s air of superiority was supreme.  He thought he had triumphed over his wife, and he pursued her with a hail of phrases which repeated the one idea, and were like the blows of an axe which fell with unvarying sound.

“Always the same?” I said, when the count left us to follow the huntsman who came to speak to him.

“Always,” answered Jacques.

“Always excellent, my son,” she said, endeavoring to withdraw Monsieur de Mortsauf from the judgment of his children.  “You see only the present, you know nothing of the past; therefore you cannot criticise your father without doing him injustice.  But even if you had the pain of seeing that your father was to blame, family honor requires you to bury such secrets in silence.”

“How have the changes at the Cassine and the Rhetoriere answered?” I asked, to divert her mind from bitter thoughts.

“Beyond my expectations,” she replied.  “As soon as the buildings were finished we found two excellent farmers ready to hire them; one at four thousand five hundred francs, taxes paid; the other at five thousand; both leases for fifteen years.  We have already planted three thousand young trees on the new farms.  Manette’s cousin is delighted to get the Rabelaye; Martineau has taken the Baude.  All our efforts have been crowned with success.  Clochegourde, without the reserved land which we call the home-farm, and without the timber and vineyards, brings in nineteen thousand francs a year, and the plantations are becoming valuable.  I am battling