Madame de Bergenheim’s revery rendered the mysterious and impenetrable veil which usually enveloped her countenance more unfathomable yet.  What sentiment made her bend her head and walk slowly as she meditated?  Was it the ennui of which she had just complained to her aunt?  Was it pure melancholy?  The monotonous ripple of the stream, the singing of the birds in the woods, the long golden reflections under the trees, all seemed to unite in filling the soul with sadness; but neither the murmuring water, the singing birds, nor the sun’s splendor was paid any attention to by Madame de Bergenheim; she gave them neither a glance nor a sigh.  Her meditation was not revery, but thought; not thoughts of the past, but of the present.  There was something precise and positive in the rapid, intelligent glance which flashed from her eyes when she raised them; it was as if she had a lucid foresight of an approaching drama.

A moment after she had passed over the wooden bridge which led from the avenue, a man wearing a blouse crossed it and followed her.  Hearing the sound of hurried steps behind her, she turned and saw, not two steps from her, the stranger who, during the storm, had vainly tried to attract her attention.  There was a moment’s silence.  The young man stood motionless, trying to catch his breath, which had been hurried, either by emotion or rapid walking.  Madame de Bergenheim, with head thrown back and widely opened eyes, looked at him with a more agitated than surprised look.

“It is you,” exclaimed he, impulsively, “you whom I had lost and now find again!”

“What madness, Monsieur!” she replied, in a low voice, putting out her hand as if to stop him.

“I beg of you, do not look at me so!  Let me gaze at you and assure myself that it is really you—­I have dreamed of this moment for so long!  Have I not paid dear enough for it?  Two months passed away from you—­from heaven!  Two months of sadness, grief, and unhappiness!  But you are pale!  Do you suffer, too?”

“Much, at this moment.”

“Clemence!”

“Call me Madame, Monsieur de Gerfaut,” she interrupted, severely.

“Why should I disobey you?  Are you not my lady, my queen?”

He bent his knee as a sign of bondage, and tried to seize her hand, which she immediately withdrew.  Madame de Bergenheim seemed to pay very little attention to the words addressed her; her uneasy glances wandered in every direction, into the depths of the bushes and the slightest undulations of the ground.  Gerfaut understood this pantomime.  He glanced, in his turn, over the place, and soon discovered at some distance a more propitious place for such a conversation as theirs.  It was a semicircular recess in one of the thickets in the park.  A rustic seat under a large oak seemed to have been placed there expressly for those who came to seek solitude and speak of love.  From there, one could see the approach of danger,