At the sound of that agonized woman's cry de Maurel's grip on his brother's shoulders had suddenly relaxed. He looked up, and for a moment it seemed to him as if he were gazing on something unreal; there was a veil in front of his eyes, and he could see nothing clearly, not even the apparition in the doorway ... a slender apparition clad all in white ... the exquisite form of a woman--a mere child--dressed in a white gown cut low round the shoulders, in accordance with the prevailing mode; her neck, shoulders and arms were bare; her tiny head was crowned with a wealth of fair hair, which clustered in unruly curls round the perfect oval of her face; her eyes, with large pupils dilated now with fear and horror, were of an unfathomable blue. She had been carrying a sheaf of bluebells in her arm, the spoils of the woodland round Courson; but at the awful sight which greeted her as she pushed open the door of the boudoir, the flowers fell from her hands and now lay scattered in a delicious tangled mass of blue--like the colour of her eyes--at her feet. As Ronnay de Maurel slowly straightened out his herculean figure, the details of the exquisite picture before him reached his perceptions one by one. He saw the delicate hands stretched out toward him with a feminine gesture of protection; he saw the dainty feet encased in sandals, which looked as if they scarce would touch the ground; he saw the full, red lips still parted with that cry of horror which she had uttered, and the eyes of that unfathomable blue like the sea in the Bay of Genoa, fixed upon him with puzzlement not unmixed with awe. The vision cleared and he became conscious that it was reality. He heard M. de Courson saying with a sigh of relief: "Fernande, thank God! you came just in time." He saw the exquisite apparition hurrying to Laurent and helping him to rise. Never in all his life had he seen anything so ethereal and so pure--and suddenly he became conscious of himself--of his rough clothes and his stained hands; he could have called to the inanimate objects in the room to close in upon him and to bury him out of sight. Like a wild animal at bay, he gave a rapid furtive glance around; his eye alighted on the bit of red ribbon which a boy's impious hand had torn from his breast. This he picked up, swiftly, stealthily; then holding it tightly in his clenched hand, he turned without another word, without another look, and fled precipitately from the room. CHAPTER V THE SPRINGTIME OF THE YEAR I