For three years Mme. de Beauseant and M. de Nueil lived in the villa on the lake of Geneva.  They lived quite alone, received no visitors, caused no talk, rose late, went out together upon the lake, knew, in short, the happiness of which we all of us dream.  It was a simple little house, with green shutters, and broad balconies shaded with awnings, a house contrived of set purpose for lovers, with its white couches, soundless carpets, and fresh hangings, everything within it reflecting their joy.  Every window looked out on some new view of the lake; in the far distance lay the mountains, fantastic visions of changing color and evanescent cloud; above them spread the sunny sky, before them stretched the broad sheet of water, never the same in its fitful changes.  All their surroundings seemed to dream for them, all things smiled upon them.

Then weighty matters recalled M. de Nueil to France.  His father and brother died, and he was obliged to leave Geneva.  The lovers bought the house; and if they could have had their way, they would have removed the hills piecemeal, drawn off the lake with a siphon, and taken everything away with them.

Mme. de Beauseant followed M. de Nueil.  She realized her property, and bought a considerable estate near Manerville, adjoining Gaston’s lands, and here they lived together; Gaston very graciously giving up Manerville to his mother for the present in consideration of the bachelor freedom in which she left him.

Mme. de Beauseant’s estate was close to a little town in one of the most picturesque spots in the valley of the Auge.  Here the lovers raised barriers between themselves and social intercourse, barriers which no creature could overleap, and here the happy days of Switzerland were lived over again.  For nine whole years they knew happiness which it serves no purpose to describe; happiness which may be divined from the outcome of the story by those whose souls can comprehend poetry and prayer in their infinite manifestations.

All this time Mme. de Beauseant’s husband, the present Marquis (his father and elder brother having died), enjoyed the soundest health.  There is no better aid to life than a certain knowledge that our demise would confer a benefit on some fellow-creature.  M. de Beauseant was one of those ironical and wayward beings who, like holders of life-annuities, wake with an additional sense of relish every morning to a consciousness of good health.  For the rest, he was a man of the world, somewhat methodical and ceremonious, and a calculator of consequences, who could make a declaration of love as quietly as a lackey announces that “Madame is served.”

This brief biographical notice of his lordship the Marquis de Beauseant is given to explain the reasons why it was impossible for the Marquise to marry M. de Nueil.

So, after a nine years’ lease of happiness, the sweetest agreement to which a woman ever put her hand, M. de Nueil and Mme. de Beauseant were still in a position quite as natural and quite as false as at the beginning of their adventure.  And yet they had reached a fatal crisis, which may be stated as clearly as any problem in mathematics.