Concentrated by silence, and overexcited by solitude, a sentiment mingled with curiosity, admiration, and almost hatred, began to take deep root in the heart of Reine. Many times she shuddered to see that the gravity of Honorât oppressed her. In her thought she reproached him for having nothing in his career that was adventurous or romantic. She compared his peaceful and uniform life with the mystery which surrounded the stranger. Then, ashamed of such thoughts, she sought to fix her hopes upon her approaching union with Honorât,--a union so sacred that, in the fulfilment of its duties, every foolish dream and imagination would be effaced. Such was the state of Reine’s heart when, by an inexplicable mystery, she found in the same day two objects, the sight of which redoubled her anguish and excited every power of her imagination. This stranger, or one of his agents, was then near her, though invisible. She could not suspect the servants within the walls of Maison-Forte of being in collusion with the stranger. All of them were old servants, grown gray in the service of Raimond V. Reared, so to speak, by them, she was too well acquainted with their life and morality to believe them capable of underhand manoeuvres. The fact that the picture was placed on her praying-stool in her chamber, disquieted her above all. She was on the point of going to her father and telling him all, but an instinctive love of the marvellous restrained her; she feared to break the charm. Her romantic character found a sort of pleasure, mingled with fear, in this mystery. Inaccessible to superstition, of a firm and decided mind, and recognising the fact that, after all, there was nothing really dangerous in allowing this strange adventure to take its course, Reine reassured herself, after searching her chamber and the connecting one very carefully. She took up the picture again, looked at it for some time, then, after dreaming awhile, she threw it into the fire. She followed the destruction of this little masterpiece with a melancholy gaze. By a strange chance the vellum, detached from the frame, caught first on both sides. Thus the figure of Erebus burned the last and was outlined a moment on the burning embers,--then a light flame leaped upon it, and all disappeared. Reine remained a long time gazing in the fireplace, as though she still saw there the picture which had been consumed. The clock of Maison-Forte struck two in the morning; the young girl returned to her senses, went to bed, and, for a long time, tried to fall asleep. CHAPTER X. THE RECORDER The day after the occurrence of the events we have just related, a group of several persons, some on foot, and others on horseback, skirted the edge of the sea, and seemed to direct their course toward the Gulf of La Ciotat.