Rosette, who sees that I am going to escape her, clings obstinately and wretchedly to the remains of her hope, and my position becomes more and more complicated.--The strange sensation that I felt in the little hermitage, and the inconceivable excitement into which I was thrown by the ardor of my beautiful lover, have been repeated several times, although in a less violent form; and often, as I sit beside Rosette, with her hand in mine, listening to her as she talks to me in her soft, cooing voice, I imagine that I am a man as she believes, and that my failure to respond to her love is pure cruelty on my part. One evening by some chance I found myself alone with the old lady in the green room;--she had in her hand a piece of embroidery, for, notwithstanding her sixty-eight years, she was never idle, being desirous, as she said, to finish before her death a piece of furniture on which she had been at work for a very long time. Feeling a little tired she put aside her work and leaned back in her great easy-chair; she looked at me very attentively and her gray eyes gleamed through her spectacles with strange vivacity; two or three times she passed her thin hand across her wrinkled forehead and seemed to be in deep thought.--The memory of a time that was no more and which she regretted gave to her face an expression of melancholy emotion.--I said nothing for fear of disturbing her thoughts, and the silence lasted some minutes; at last she broke it. "They are Henri's eyes,--my dear Henri's,--the same bright, melting glance, the same way of carrying the head, the same sweet, proud face;--one would say it was he.--You cannot imagine how striking the resemblance is, Monsieur Théodore;--when I see you, I can no longer believe that Henri is dead; I think that he has been on a long journey from which he has at last returned.--You have given me much pleasure and much pain, Théodore!--pleasure by reminding me of my poor Henri, pain by showing me how great a loss I have suffered; sometimes I have taken you for his phantom.--I cannot get used to the idea that you are going to leave us; it seems to me that I am losing my Henri once more." I told her that if it were possible for me to remain longer I would do it with pleasure, but that my stay had already been prolonged far beyond what it should have been; that I looked forward to returning, however, and that my memories of the chateau would be too pleasant to allow me to forget it so quickly. "Sorry as I am to have you leave us, Monsieur Théodore," she continued, pursuing her thought, "there is some one here who will be more so than I.--You understand whom I refer to, without my telling you. I don't know what we shall do with Rosette when you have gone; but the old chateau is a very dull place. Alcibiades is always hunting, and for a young woman like her the society of a poor helpless old creature like myself is not very entertaining."