At sound of the name, Laure flushed scarlet, and then turned pale again. “Flammecœur! Flammecœur!” she murmured to herself. Then, suddenly, she shook the spell away. “Ah, how did I fall from heaven to hell and find heaven in hell? I cannot tell thee more than thou thyself hast said. I was buried while I was yet alive; and so I arose from mine own tomb and escaped back to the world of living things. I was among sleepers, yet could not myself sleep. After a time fire, not blood, began to run in my veins. And so, in the end, I rode away with the Flaming-heart. And I loved him! _how_ I loved him! God be merciful to me! Ah, Lenore, how do they put us poor, long-haired things into the fair world, giving us hearts and brains and souls, and thereon bid us all only to spin—to spin, and weave, and so, perchance, kiss, once, and then go back to spin again?” Laure was half hysterical, but wholly in earnest,—so much in earnest that she had forgotten her companion; and when she looked at her again, she found Lenore lying back on her pillows, her breath coming more rapidly than usual, but her face rigidly calm, her blue eyes wandering through space, and Laure perceived that she had rejected the passionate words and kept herself still in the dream state. It was well that at this moment there came a tap at the door. Laure cried entrance, and as Alixe came in from the hall, Madame Eleanore appeared from the other door that led to Laure’s room, and thence through to madame’s own chamber. Evidently the work hours were over, and it was time for the noon meal. Lenore did not care to descend to meat, and she asked Alixe to bring a glass of wine and water and a manchet of bread to her room. This request Alixe joyfully promised to fulfil, and then Laure and her mother together left the room, Laure in the throes of a painful reaction from strong feeling, and with a sense, moreover, that Lenore was relieved to have her go. In this last conjecture, or rather, sense, Laure was right. But it was not through dislike of her sister that Lenore was glad to be alone again. It was rather because the young widow had been powerfully moved by Laure’s words, and she wanted time and solitude to readjust herself from the new and disquieting ideas that had been put into her mind. Alixe believed her to be fatigued, and perhaps suffering; and, understanding her nature much better than Laure did, she brought the invalid everything that she wanted in the way of food, and then left her, believing that she could sleep.