She knew by hearsay that almost all men, however tender they may be, and however dearly loved their mistresses, cannot remain long away from the latter without experiencing irresistible temptations to deceive her with the first girl that they meet. But this was true of men, and not of women. Why, then, did she find herself a prey to this inexplicable agitation, to this thirst for sensual intoxications, of which she had believed herself for ever cured by the influence of her ennobling, her ideal love? The depraved creature that she had formerly been awoke by degrees. At night, in her sleep, she was haunted by visions of her past. In vain, had she striven, and in vain had she cursed her secret perversion. Then she had allowed herself to listen to the addresses of the young Count de la Croix-Firmim. She remembered with horror the kind of nervous fascination which this man's presence, his smile, and his eyes had exerted upon her. Then--she would fain have died at the recollection of this--one afternoon, when he had come up to see her, and there was a torrid heat, such as makes the will feel itself drooping, he had been venturesome, and she had given herself to him, faintly at first, and then impetuously and madly. For three days she had been his mistress--a prey to the wildness of physical passion--banishing, ever banishing, the recollection of Hubert, feeling herself rolling into a gulf of infamy, and flinging herself still further into it, until the day when she had awakened from this sensual frenzy as from a dream. She had opened her eyes, measured her shame, and, like a wounded and dying creature, had fled from the accursed spot and from her detested accomplice to return--to what?--and to whom? A melancholy and heart-breaking return to what had been the restoration of her entire life, to what she had blasted for ever! She had returned to the room of those sweet hours, and she had found Hubert, her Hubert--but could she still call him so?--more tender, more loving, and more loved than before. Alas! alas! had her inexpiable deceit rendered her for ever powerless to taste that of which she was no longer worthy? In the young man's arms, and on his heart, she had remembered the other, and the ecstacy of former times, the delicious and unspeakable swooning in the excess of feeling, had fled from her.