Madame de Campvallon the sweetest period of her life.  She finally tasted to the full an intimacy, so long troubled, of which the charm, in truth, was very great; for her lover, as if to make her forget his momentary desertion, was prodigal in the effusion of his tenderness.  He brought to private studies, as well as to their common schemes, an ardor, a fire, which displayed itself in his face, in his eyes, and which seemed yet more to heighten his manly beauty.  It often happened, after quitting the Marquise in the evening, that he worked very late at home, sometimes until morning.  One night, shortly before the day fixed for their departure, a private servant of the Count, who slept in the room above his master’s, heard a noise which alarmed him.

He went down in great haste, and found M. de Camors stretched apparently lifeless on the floor at the foot of his desk.  The servant, whose name was Daniel, had all his master’s confidence, and he loved him with that singular affection which strong natures often inspire in their inferiors.

He sent for Madame de Campvallon, who soon came.  M. de Camors, recovering from his fainting-fit, was very pale, and was walking across the room when she entered.  He seemed irritated at seeing her, and rebuked his servant sharply for his ill-advised zeal.

He said he had only had a touch of vertigo, to which he was subject.  Madame de Campvallon soon retired, having first supplicated him not to overwork himself again.  When he came to her next day, she could not help being surprised at the dejection stamped on his face, which she attributed to the attack he had had the night before.  But when she spoke of their approaching departure, she was astonished, and even alarmed by his reply: 

“Let us defer it a little, I beg of you,” he said.  “I do not feel in a state fit for travelling.”

Days passed; he made no further allusion to the voyage.  He was serious, silent, and cold.  The active ardor, almost feverish, which had animated until then his life, his speech, his eyes, was suddenly quenched.  One symptom which disquieted the Marquise above all was the absolute idleness to which he now abandoned himself.

He left her in the evening at an early hour.  Daniel told the Marquise that the Count worked no longer; that he heard him pacing up and down the greater part of the night.  At the same time his health failed visibly.  The Marquise ventured once to interrogate him.  As they were both walking one day in the park, she said: 

“You are hiding something from me.  You suffer, my friend.  What is the cause?”

“There is nothing.”

“I pray you tell me!”

“Nothing is the matter with me,” he replied, petulantly.

“Is it your son that you regret?”

“I regret nothing.”  After a few steps taken in silence—­“When I think,” he said, quickly, “that there is one person in the world who considers me a coward—­for I hear always that word in my ear—­and who treated me like a coward, and who believed it when it was said, and believes it still!  If it had been a man, it would be easy, but it was a woman.”