“Adieu!  Return soon.  I suffer too much when you are far away.

“OLIVIER.”

“Roncieres, August 8th.

“MY FRIEND:  I am ill, and so fatigued that you would not recognize me at all.  I believe that I have wept too much.  I must rest a little before I return, for I do not wish you to see me as I am.  My husband sets out for Paris the day after to-morrow, and will give you news of us.  He expects to take you to dinner somewhere, and charges me to ask you to wait for him at your house about seven o’clock.

“As for me, as soon as I feel a little better, as soon as I have no more this corpse-like face which frightens me, I will return to be near you.  In all the world, I have only Annette and you, and I wish to offer to each of you all that I can give without robbing the other.

“I hold out my eyes, which have wept so much, so that you may kiss them.

“ANY.”

When he received this letter announcing the still delayed return, Olivier was seized with an immoderate desire to take a carriage for the railway station to catch a train for Roncieres; then, thinking that M. de Guilleroy must return the next day, he resigned himself, and even began to wish for the arrival of the husband with almost as much impatience as if it were that of the wife herself.

Never had he liked Guilleroy as during those twenty-four hours of waiting.  When he saw him enter, he rushed toward him, with hands extended, exclaiming: 

“Ah, dear friend! how happy I am to see you!”

The other also seemed very glad, delighted above all things to return to Paris, for life was not gay in Normandy during the three weeks he had passed there.

The two men sat down on a little two-seated sofa in a corner of the studio, under a canopy of Oriental stuffs, and again shook hands with mutual sympathy.

“And the Countess?” asked Bertin, “how is she?”

“Not very well.  She has been very much affected, and is recovering too slowly.  I must confess that I am a little anxious about her.”

“But why does she not return?”

“I know nothing about it.  It was impossible for me to induce her to return here.”

“What does she do all day?”

“Oh, heavens!  She weeps, and thinks of her mother.  That is not good for her.  I should like very much to have her decide to have a change of air, to leave the place where that happened, you understand?”

“And Annette?”

“Oh, she is a blooming flower.”

Olivier smiled with joy.

“Was she very much grieved?” he asked again.

“Yes, very much, very much, but you know that the grief of eighteen years does not last long.”

After a silence Guilleroy resumed: 

“Where shall we dine, my dear fellow?  I need to be cheered up, to hear some noise and see some movement.”

“Well, at this season, it seems to me that the Cafe des Ambassadeurs is the right place.”