But he is presently rewarded by the grating noise caused by the removal of the obstacle within, and the faint shriek of joy which escaped the lips of the sweet Constance. She sees it all now! Mother Jeanne, in her rage for cleaning, had moved the old oaken bench from the archway of the cloister, and had placed it crosswise before the door, where it had resisted all her own puny efforts, as though it had been a wall of iron; and now her laugh of delight is so convulsive that it is more painful than were her tears and sobs. Meanwhile, young Talleyrand had pushed open a space sufficient for her passage into the cloister, and he assisted her to mount the bench and pass through. The hand which she gave him, and which but a little while before had startled him by its burning touch, was now as cold as marble. He imprinted one pure and holy kiss upon it before he closed the door for ever; and when he found that she withdrew it not, but thanked him, and blessed him fervently, and called him her deliverer, and said ‘_that he had saved her life_,’ he shut the door abruptly, for he could bear no more. He stood for a moment listening at the keyhole for the sound of her retreating step. It must have been very light, however, for he heard it not. He then walked slowly home to the _seminaire_, insensible now to either wind or rain. “The books which the young student had brought from the Sorbonne were unperused that day. His mind was too much absorbed with the memory of that beauteous maiden, and with the undefined terror which he experienced for her sake. On the morrow, he walked several times completely round the convent walls, but he saw not an evidence that the building was inhabited by a single human being. On the third day, he could not control his impatience, and bestowed a silver crown on the _commissionaire_ to go and ask, as if despatched by some great lady, whose name he was to forget, for news of the health of Mademoiselle Constance de V. The answer he brought back was that ‘Mademoiselle Constance de V., in an attack of fever, being for a few moments unwatched, had risen from her bed and gone down into the cloisters, no doubt feeling grievously ill, and in search of assistance. It was supposed that she had wandered for some time in the quadrangle, for she was found lying drenched with wet upon the oaken bench, by the _porte de service_ of the outer court. She was without sense or motion when taken up, and it was certain that she had already been dead for some time (this was the private opinion of the _tourière_), although the superior would insist on having the viaticum administered all the same. She had been buried that very morning at daybreak, and Mademoiselle de Breteuil, the favourite _pensionnaire_ of the abbess, had got the promise of her cell to keep her birds in, until the arrival of another _pensionnaire_ to occupy it. The abbess was very angry with sister Marthe for having left the bedside of Mademoiselle de V., but could not