She will be delighted, and I thank you. Genevieve has no relations except her elder sister, who brought her up." "I hope that this marriage will recall Esperance's promise to her. Meantime I shall go to Italy for about the two months. Will you see if I may say good-bye to her?" "I will go now." He was soon back again. "My cousin expects you." It was more than a month since the Duke had seen Esperance. He was painfully shocked by the change in her pretty face. She looked hardly real. Her eyes were enormous. Genevieve and Mlle. Frahender were with her. "Here is the Duke de Morlay-La-Branche who has come to say good-bye to you." Esperance turned her eyes towards the Duke. "It is a long time since I have seen you," she said simply. And her voice sounded like the tone of a distant harp. "You have been very ill!" "I have been very ill, I believe, but I cannot remember very well. I feel as if I had had heavy blows in my brain; sometimes I hear dreadful calls and then everything is quiet again. And then sometimes I see a piece of a picture, no beginning, no end, sometimes horrible, sometimes lovely. Why, now I remember," she spoke gently with a charming smile, "that you are part of all my visions, but I do not know any more how, or why.... And Albert, where is he? Why does he not come? He must come and undo the collar.... Ah! my God, my God, I am wandering you see, nothing is clear yet." She raised her arms. "My God, my God, have pity on me or take me at once. I do not want to lose my mind!" She took the Duke's hand. "Say you are not sorry that you loved me?" "I love you always!" She clapped her hands with a silvery laugh, "Genevieve, Genevieve, he loves me still." And she hid her head on the young girl's arm. Maurice led the Duke away, overcome. He looked questioningly at the painter. "No, she will not be light-headed long, the Doctors all agree about that, but her memory will have to come back by degrees a little at a time. She recognized you. She remembered her love and yours. That is a great step. Her youth, her love, and time will be, I believe, certain restorers." The Duke left soon after they had taken Esperance away. In Belgium the Countess had prepared for her beloved daughter. This beautiful woman of forty, so charming, so handsome in her mauve mourning, had already become an old woman whose movements were ever slow and sad. Her back was bent, from constantly kneeling beside her son's grave. Her black clothes reflected the deeper gloom of her expression. And to those who had seen her a few months before, she was almost unrecognizable.