"The summer passed away, but Dervilly had learned nothing more of the history of his betrothed; she still avoided the subject, and, when he alluded to it, she would beg him to desist, and hide her face in his bosom and weep. "Strange thoughts at last found their way into his brain, fearful surmises began to disturb his peace, and, when absent from Emilie, he would resolve at their next interview, to insist on knowing all. But when the time came, and he met, turned on him, the open and innocent look of the maiden's clear eyes, which expressed so earnestly how entirely her soul rested on his, all courage failed him, and he could not go on..... * * * * * "One evening," continued Partridge, after a pause, and with the tone of a person approaching an unpleasant subject, "One evening, after dinner--I think it was the first week in September--when the day had been excessively sultry, I strolled into the large garden, which you recollect belonged to our old lodgings in the _Rue d' Enfer_ and after a while sat down in the summer-house. Presently little Sophie Lecomte came running out to me, and I remained amusing myself with the child's prattle till it was dark. The moon shone brightly, and I did not perceive how late it was, until reminded of the hour by finding that Sophie was fast asleep in my lap. I rose and carried her into the house, and went quietly to my room. I seated myself near the window without lighting the candles, feeling that the glare would not just then harmonize with my feelings. The truth is, I was thinking of you, and of that romantic passage across the Apennines, and of the fair stranger, and so forth. I sat by the window, the moonlight streaming across the room, over the top of the old chapel, the windows and doors open, and every thing still except the monotonous chirping of a single cricket, louder than that of any French cricket I ever heard before, and which sung the very same song I used to hear when a boy from under the large kitchen hearthstone at home. I began to feel a little lonely, and so started up, and stamped with my feet in order to silence the solitary insect, or arouse the rest of the family, but the old one only sung the harder, and the others would not wake, and I sat down again, and half closed my eyes in order to lose myself, if I could, in some pleasant revery. My eyes _were_ half closed, the perfume from the graperies filled the room, and had a pleasant effect upon my senses, and thus I began to forget where I was and what was about me. Presently I heard a rapid unsteady step along the corridor; it grew more rapid and more unsteady; I raised my head, and at that instant Dervilly hurried into the room. 'I knew it--I knew it,' he exclaimed, wildly; 'one of the sirens sent from hell! I have sold myself, body and soul!--I am lost--lost. Ah! I knew it--I knew it.' Shocked and surprised as I was by such an extraordinary scene, I did not forget that Dervilly was of a