more forward, a little more—­and that suffering would be terminated.  Yes, it would be so very simple.  She saw herself lying upon the pavement, her limbs broken, her head crushed, dead—­dead—­freed!  She leaned forward and was about to leap, when her eyes fell upon a person who was walking below, the sight of whom suddenly aroused her from the folly, the strange charm of which had just laid hold so powerfully upon her.  She drew back.  She rubbed her eyes with her hands, and she, who was accustomed to mystical enthusiasm, said aloud: 

“My God!  You send him to me!  I am saved.”  And she summoned the footman to tell him that if M. Dorsenne asked for her, he should be shown into Madame Steno’s small salon.  “I am not at home to any one else,” she added.

It was indeed Julien, whom she had seen approach the house at the very instant when she was only separated from the abyss by that last tremor of animal repugnance, which is found even in suicide of the most ardent kind.  Do not madmen themselves choose to die in one manner rather than in another?  She paused several moments in order to collect herself.

“Yes,” said she at length, to herself, “it is the only solution.  I will find out if he loves me truly.  And if he does not?”

She again looked toward the window, in order to assure herself that, in case that conversation did not end as she desired, the tragical and simple means remained at her service by which to free herself from that infamous life which she surely could not bear.

Julien began the conversation in his tone of sentimental raillery, so speedily to be transformed into one of drama!  He knew very well, on arriving at Villa Steno, that he was to have his last tete-a-tete with his pretty and interesting little friend.  For he had at length decided to go away, and, to be more sure of not failing, he had engaged his sleeping-berth for that night.  He had jested so much with love that he entered upon that conversation with a jest; when, having tried to take Alba’s hand to press a kiss upon it, he saw that it was bandaged.

“What has happened to you, little Countess?  Have my laurels or those of Florent Chapron prevented you from sleeping, that you are here with the classical wrist of a duellist?....  Seriously, how have you hurt yourself?”

“I leaned against a window, which broke and the pieces of glass cut my fingers somewhat,” replied the young girl with a faint smile, adding:  “It is nothing.”

“What an imprudent child you are!” said Dorsenne in his tone of friendly scolding.  “Do you know that you might have severed an artery and have caused a very serious, perhaps a fatal, hemorrhage?”

“That would not have been such a great misfortune,” replied Alba, shaking her pretty head with an expression so bitter about her mouth that the young man, too, ceased smiling.

“Do not speak in that tone,” said he, “or I shall think you did it purposely.”