Lormerin’s heart began to throb.  He remained sunk in his armchair with the letter on his knees, staring straight before him, overcome by a poignant emotion that made the tears mount up to his eyes!

If he had ever loved a woman in his life it was this one, little Lise, Lise de Vance, whom he called “Ashflower,” on account of the strange color of her hair and the pale gray of her eyes.  Oh! what a dainty, pretty, charming creature she was, this frail baronne, the wife of that gouty, pimply baron, who had abruptly carried her off to the provinces, shut her up, kept her in seclusion through jealousy, jealousy of the handsome Lormerin.

Yes, he had loved her, and he believed that he too, had been truly loved.  She familiarly gave him, the name of Jaquelet, and would pronounce that word in a delicious fashion.

A thousand forgotten memories came back to him, far, off and sweet and melancholy now.  One evening she had called on him on her way home from a ball, and they went for a stroll in the Bois de Boulogne, she in evening dress, he in his dressing-jacket.  It was springtime; the weather was beautiful.  The fragrance from her bodice embalmed the warm air-the odor of her bodice, and perhaps, too, the fragrance of her skin.  What a divine night!  When they reached the lake, as the moon’s rays fell across the branches into the water, she began to weep.  A little surprised, he asked her why.

“I don’t know.  The moon and the water have affected me.  Every time I see poetic things I have a tightening at the heart, and I have to cry.”

He smiled, affected himself, considering her feminine emotion charming —­the unaffected emotion of a poor little woman, whom every sensation overwhelms.  And he embraced her passionately, stammering: 

“My little Lise, you are exquisite.”

What a charming love affair, short-lived and dainty, it had been and over all too quickly, cut short in the midst of its ardor by this old brute of a baron, who had carried off his wife, and never let any one see her afterward.

Lormerin had forgotten, in fact, at the end of two or three months.  One woman drives out another so quickly in Paris, when one is a bachelor!  No matter; he had kept a little altar for her in his heart, for he had loved her alone!  He assured himself now that this was so.

He rose, and said aloud:  “Certainly, I will go and dine with her this evening!”

And instinctively he turned toward the mirror to inspect himself from head to foot.  He reflected:  “She must look very old, older than I look.”  And he felt gratified at the thought of showing himself to her still handsome, still fresh, of astonishing her, perhaps of filling her with emotion, and making her regret those bygone days so far, far distant!

He turned his attention to the other letters.  They were of no importance.

The whole day he kept thinking of this ghost of other days.  What was she like now?  How strange it was to meet in this way after twenty-five years!  But would he recognize her?