But at that very moment, amid the blackest of her thoughts and suppositions, a vision arose and stood in a bright light before her. A figure approached, that seemed to come to meet her glance, a figure against which she could not defend herself, and which passed through the hands with which she sought to force it back. Mademoiselle de Varandeuil saw her dead maid once more. She saw once more the face of which she had caught a glimpse in the amphitheatre, the crucified face, the tortured face to which the blood and agony of a heart had mounted together. She saw it once more with the faculty which the second sight of memory separates from its surroundings. And that face, as it became clearer to her, caused her less terror. It appeared to her, divesting itself, as it were, of its fear-inspiring, horrifying qualities. Suffering alone remained, but it was the suffering of expiation, almost of prayer, the suffering of a dead face that would like to weep. And as its expression grew ever milder, mademoiselle came at last to see in it a glance of supplication, of supplication that, at last, compelled her pity. Insensibly there glided into her reflections indulgent thoughts, suggestions of apology that surprised herself. She asked herself if the poor girl was as guilty as others, if she had deliberately chosen the path of evil, if life, circumstances, the misfortune of her body and her destiny, had not made her the creature she had been, a creature of love and sorrow. Suddenly she stopped: she was on the point of forgiving her! One morning she leaped out of bed. "Here! you--you other!" she cried to her housekeeper, "the devil take your name! I can't remember it. Give me my clothes, quick! I have to go out." "The idea, mademoiselle--just look at the roofs, they're all white." "Well, it snows, that's all." Ten minutes later, Mademoiselle de Varandeuil said to the driver of the cab she had sent for: "Montmartre Cemetery!" LXX