Summer wove out its web over the Castle by the sea, and at length its golden heat began to give way before the attacks of chilly nights and shortening days. The earth grew rich and red with autumn. Chestnut fires began to blaze upon peasants’ hearths, and the early morning air had in it that little sting that brings the blood to the cheek and fire to the eye. It was still too early for flights of storks toward the Nile, and the year, hovering on the edge of dissolution, was at the zenith of its glory. It was the time when the smoke from the forest fires lingers pungently over the land for days on end, like incense proffered to the beauty of Mother Earth. It was the time when the sun rises and sets in a veil of mist that transcends the splendor of its golden gleams, till, before the incomparable richness and purity of its glory, the human spectator can only stand back, aghast and trembling with awe. In fine, it was that time when, Nature having reached the full measure of her maturity, she was turning to look back upon her youth, in retrospect of all the loveliness that had been hers, before she should start toward the darker, colder, grayer regions that lay about her coming grave. It was late in the afternoon of such an autumn day that the three women of Le Crépuscule, Laure, Lenore, and Eleanore, each lightly wrapped about to protect her from the slight chill in the air, went out of the Castle to the terrace bordering the cliff, for their evening walk. In the hearts of all three lay that little wistful sadness that was part of the time of year, and in their surrounding solitude they involuntarily drew close each to the other. Yet their faces were not wholly sad. None of them wept at the thought of the long winter that was again upon them. Hand in hand, by the murmurous sea, they walked, looking off upon the broad plain of moving waters, each unconsciously seeking to read there the destiny of her remaining years. The hour was a holy one, and there came no sound from the living world to pierce its stillness. Nature knelt before the great marriage of the sun and sea. The altar of the west was hung with golden and purple tapestries; and the ministers of the sky poured out a libation of crimson-flowing wine before the Lord of Heaven. And when the sacrifice was made, all could behold how the great sun slipped gently from his car into the embrace of the sea, and the two of them were presently hidden underneath the golden locks and shimmering veil of the beautiful bride; and thereafter Twilight, the swift-footed handmaid, aided by all the ocean nymphs, quickly pulled the broad curtains of gray and crimson across the portals of the bridal room.