The face of the Marchioness d’Auray was even more grave than it was wont to be, while she crossed the park to repair to the dwelling of a man who was said to be an old servant of the family. The door was standing open as if to allow the last rays of the setting sun to penetrate into the house, so sweet and balmy to old people in the month of May. The house was however empty. The Marchioness d’Auray entered it, looked around her, and then as if certain that the person she was in search of would not be long absent, she resolved to await his return. She sat down. She had remained there about half an hour, motionless and absorbed in her reflections, when she saw, between her and the declining daylight, a shadow cast before the door. She slowly raised her eyes and recognised the person she had been expecting. They both started as though they had met by chance, and were not in the habit of seeing each other every day. “It is you, Achard,” said the marchioness, who was the first to speak. “I have been waiting for you half an hour. Where can you have been?” “Had your ladyship walked fifty paces farther, you would have found me under the large oak, on the edge of the forest.” “You know I never walk that way,” said the marchioness, with a visible shudder. “And you are wrong, madam; there is one in heaven who has a right to our joint prayers, and who, perhaps, is astonished to hear only those of old Achard.” “And how know you that I do not also pray?” said the marchioness, with a certain degree of feverish agitation. “Do you believe that the dead require we should be constantly kneeling on their tombs?” “No,” replied the old man, with a feeling of profound sorrow; “no, I do not believe that the dead are so exacting, madam; but I believe if any part of us lives under ground, it would thrill at the noise caused by the steps of those whom we have loved during our life.” “But,” said the marchioness, in a low and hollow tone, “if that love were a guilty passion?” “However guilty it may have been, madam,” replied the old man, also lowering his voice, “do you not believe that blood and tears have expatiated it? God was then, believe me, too severe a judge, not to have now become an indulgent father.” “Yes, God has perhaps pardoned it,” murmured the marchioness, “but did the world know that which God knows, would it pardon as God has done?” “The world!” exclaimed the old man; “the world! Yes, there is the great word which has again escaped your lips! The world! It is to it, to that phantom you have sacrificed everything, madam; your feelings as a lover, your feelings as a wife, your feelings as a mother! your own happiness, the happiness of others! The world! It is the fear of the world which has clothed you in perpetual mourning, beneath which you hope to conceal remorse! And in that you are right, for you have succeeded in deceiving it, for it has taken your remorse for virtue!”