She walked slowly along the bank of the lake, her head bowed, and the long skirt of her mourning-robe sweeping the grass. Two large and dazzlingly white swans, watching their mistress eagerly, in expectation of receiving their usual titbits from her hands, swam close to the bank, following her steps as if escorting her. Suddenly the Comte de Camors appeared before her. She had believed that she never should see him again. She raised her head quickly and pressed one hand to her heart. “Yes, it is I!” said Camors. “Give me your hand.” She gave it to him. “You were right, Charlotte,” he said, after a moment of silence. “Ties like ours can not be broken. I have reflected on everything. I was seized with a momentary cowardice, for which I have reproached myself bitterly, and for which, moreover, I have been sufficiently punished. But I come to you to ask your forgiveness.” The Marquise led him tenderly into the deep shadow of the great plane-trees that surrounded the lake; she knelt before him with theatric grace, and fixed on him her swimming eyes. She covered his head with kisses. He raised her and pressed her to his heart. “But you do not wish that crime to be committed?” he said in a low voice. She bent her head with mournful indecision. “For that matter,” he added, bitterly, “it would only make us worthier of each other; for, as to myself, they have already believed me capable of it.” He took her arm and recounted to her briefly the scene of the night before. He told her he had not returned home, and never should. This was the result of his mournful meditations. To attempt an explanation with those who had so mortally outraged him--to open to them the depth of his heart--to allude to the criminal thought they had accused him of--he had repelled with horror, the evening before, when proposed by another. He thought of all this; but this humiliation--if he could have so abased himself--would have been useless. How could he hope to conquer by these words the distrust capable of creating such suspicions? He confusedly divined the origin, and understood that this distrust, envenomed by remembrance of the past, was incurable. The sentiment of the irreparable, of revolted pride, indignation, and even injustice, had shown him but one refuge, and it was this to which he had fled. The Comtesse de Camors and Madame de Tecle learned only through their servants and the public of the removal of the Count to a country-house he had rented near the Chateau Campvallon. After writing ten letters--all of which he had burned--he had decided to maintain an absolute silence. They sometimes trembled at the thought he might take away his son. He thought of it; but it was a kind of vengeance that he disdained.