Each time, until now, at the moment of her greatest distress she had been sustained by a certain freshness. It was the Eternal Grace which had pity upon her, and restored her illusions. She jumped out on to the floor with her bare feet, and ran eagerly to the window. Then at last she heard the voices rising again; invisible wings brushed against her hair, the people of the “Golden Legend” came out from the trees and the stones, and crowded around her. Her purity, her goodness, all that which resembled her in Nature, returned to her and saved her. Now she was no longer afraid, for she knew that she was watched over. Agnes had come back with the wandering, gentle virgins, and in the air she breathed was a sweet calmness, which, notwithstanding her intense sadness, strengthened her in her resolve to die rather than fail in her duty or break her promise. At last, quite exhausted, she crept back into her bed, falling asleep again with the fear of the morrow’s trials, constantly tormented by the idea that she must succumb in the end, if her weakness thus increased each day. In fact, a languor gained fearfully upon Angelique since she thought Felicien no longer loved her. She was deeply wounded and silent, uncomplaining; she seemed to be dying hourly. At first it showed itself by weariness. She would have an attack of want of breath, when she was forced to drop her thread, and for a moment remain with her eyes half closed, seeing nothing, although apparently looking straight before her. Then she left off eating, scarcely taking even a little milk; and she either hid her bread or gave it to the neighbours’ chickens, that she need not make her parents anxious. A physician having been called, found no acute disease, but considering her life too solitary, simply recommended a great deal of exercise. It was like a gradual fading away of her whole being; a disappearing by slow degrees, an obliterating of her physique from its immaterial beauty. Her form floated like the swaying of two great wings; a strong light seemed to come from her thin face, where the soul was burning. She could now come down from her chamber only in tottering steps, as she supported herself by putting her two hands against the wall of the stairway. But as soon as she realised she was being looked at, she made a great effort, and even persisted in wishing to finish the panel of heavy embroidery for the Bishop’s seat. Her little, slender hands had no more strength, and when she broke a needle she could not draw it from the work with the pincers.