“I will go to her,” said Madame Dulaurens, and, kissing the daughter whom she was sacrificing, she went out of the room. Scarcely was the door shut when Alice, her heart beating wildly, sprang forward and with trembling hands tried in vain to open it. “Mamma,” she cried through the partition, “I love him, I love him! Say yes, I beg of you.” She opened the door at last. But the corridor was empty. Madame Dulaurens had gone. She had heard that last heartrending cry. Accustomed to treating the girl as a child who must be governed, she attached no importance to this. Calmly, without compunction, fully persuaded that she was acting as a tender and devoted mother, she went down to receive Madame Guibert and when she entered the drawing-room, she had already prepared the polite and amiable formula of her refusal. Seeing herself deserted, Alice was crushed. She stood motionless and panting, trembling in every limb, ready to sink to the ground. All at once she pulled herself together, ran hurriedly down the staircase, and finding a gate to the park open, fled far away from the house. She ran to hide her pain in the shadow of the oaks--the same oaks under which she had heard from Paule’s lips the avowal of Marcel’s love. She sat down on the dead leaves. She would have liked to lie upon the gentle earth, to lie there forever, lifeless and forgotten. It was here, in this spot full of mystery, that she had felt the first consciousness of her youth. Here her eyes had first wakened to the loveliness of nature. Here she had suddenly understood the joy of life. To her it seemed the very shrine of that fair existence which came to its close so soon. She had no courage left, and her only thought was of death. She never knew how long she was in the wood. There she wept her heart out, telling herself she would be faithful to her lover’s memory, and that if she could not belong to him she would belong to no one. But she did not tell herself that this promise in itself was a renunciation. So she stood self-condemned, incapable of that active love which strives and triumphs. CHAPTER VII THE PROPOSAL With her slow and lingering step Madame Guibert came up the avenue of plane-trees. For this visit of ceremony she was dressed in her newest black dress, and Paule with the greatest care had done her hair and arranged the folds of the widow’s veil. “You look splendid now,” her son and daughter assured her, as she was getting into the carriage before the steps at Le Maupas. In spite of his mother’s protestations, Marcel had ordered a smart Victoria for her instead of Trélaz’s old carriage.