But this same night, whose pure calmness she invoked, was wrapping in its coolness of closing summer, the love of Albert and Anne. By a sudden change she detested it, and called for daylight, less indulgent to lovers, and therefore less distressing to her. After accepting her desertion patiently and calmly for five months, she was now rebelling and wringing her hands, as she reproached the night. Ignorance, the feeling of offended dignity, contempt, no longer protected her from the jealous fury which possessed her. They were together at this hour--side by side, and too late she knew the strength of that passion which had attracted them, the one to the other, and which she herself, by leaving him, had allowed to develop. This Anne de Sézery whom she had received in her home without heeding her ardent nature, whom she had never looked at except to find fault with her--of whom she never thought till then, except to attribute to her the basest of motives, she now pictured with her golden eyes, her face lighted up by emotion and the intellectual delight which emanated from her. She hated her--while she tried to be just to her. She was keenly alive to her suffering, as though she had just been deceived. A cry which echoed from afar aroused her. It was one of those calls which the shepherds send from one hill to another: a prolonged and lingering note--followed by a sharp trill which seemed to mock her. It was repeated once, then again, growing more distant, less distinct. The silence added to it, accentuated its dual expression of mockery and despair. Was it the signal of a lover or the good-by of shepherd? Elizabeth, overwhelmed, listened for its repetition. The return to her thoughts tired her so, that she longed to find rest from the expression of her sorrow in any external manifestation, even in discordant music. But in the silence, she surrendered again to the loneliness of love. Had she ever felt that love before, or, so aroused, was she experiencing it for the first time? It dispelled triumphantly, with brutality and certainty, all the contempt she had felt in the past few weeks, since she had known of the secret wickedness going on about her in the name of love. She even forgave Philippe Lagier his impertinent confession, for the sake of the warning he had given her at Grenoble, which now came back to her memory like a realized prediction. "To love, if one sincerely loves you," he had said--"if one spares you every difficulty, every effort, is not to one's credit. To love when you are deserted, betrayed, forgotten, when your heart is trampled upon,--that is love."