of the neighboring chamber was opened, his agony was redoubled.  He distinguished the whispering of the two voices; then, an instant after, the dull fall of Madame de Tecle upon the carpet; then her despairing sobs.  M. de Camors threw from him violently the book which he was forcing himself to read, and, placing his elbows on the bureau which was before him, held, for a long time, his pale brow tightened in his contracted hands.  When the sound of sobs abated little by little, and then ceased, he breathed freer.  About midday he received this note: 

“If you will permit me to take my daughter to the country for a few
days, I shall be grateful to you.

“Elisede Tecle.”

He returned immediately this simple reply: 

“You can do nothing of which I do not approve to-day and always. 
Camors.”

Madame de Tecle, in fact, having consulted the inclination and the strength of her daughter, had determined to remove her without delay, if possible, from the impressions of the spot where she had suffered so severely from the presence of her husband, and from the unfortunate embarrassment of their situation.  She desired also to meditate in solitude, in order to decide what course to take under such unexampled circumstances.  Finally, she had not the courage to see M. de Camors again—­if she ever could see him again—­until some time had elapsed.  It was not without anxiety that she awaited the reply of the Count to the request she had addressed him.

In the midst of the troubled confusion of her ideas, she believed him capable of almost anything; and she feared everything from him.  The Count’s note reassured her.  She hastened to read it to her daughter; and both of them, like two poor lost creatures who cling to the smallest twig, remarked with pleasure the tone of respectful abandonment with which he had reposed their destinies in their own hands.  He spent his whole day at the session of the Corps Legislatif; and when he returned, they had departed.

Madame de Camors woke up the next morning in the chamber where her girlhood had passed.  The birds of spring were singing under her windows in the old ancestral gardens.  As she recognized these friendly voices, so familiar to her infancy, her heart melted; but several hours’ sleep had restored to her her natural courage.  She banished the thoughts which had weakened her, rose, and went to surprise her mother at her first waking.  Soon after, both of them were walking together on the terrace of lime-trees.  It was near the end of April; the young, scented verdure spread itself out beneath the sunbeams; buzzing flies already swarmed in the half-opened roses, in the blue pyramids of lilacs, and in the clusters of pink clover.  After a few turns made in silence in the midst of this fresh and enchanting scene, the young Countess, seeing her mother absorbed in reverie, took her hand.

“Mother,” she said, “do not be sad.  Here we are as formerly—­both of us in our little nook.  We shall be happy.”