"Noble-hearted child!" cried the princess, "let your mind be at rest; we will triumph together; but I thank you for this generous impulse of your heart. Ah! yes, all your impulses are generous, I know. I am not happy simply, I am proud of you!" And she took the young man's head in both hands and kissed him again. But Michel thought that he heard footsteps a short distance away, and the fear of compromising that courageous woman triumphed over his happiness. "We may be watched or surprised," he said to her; "I am sure that someone is coming this way. Fly! I will stay hidden in the bushes here until these people, whether spies or mere passers-by, are out of hearing. But we shall meet to-morrow, shall we not?" "Oh! surely," she replied. "Come here in the morning, as if to work, and go up to my Casino." She pressed him to her heart once more, then entered the park and disappeared among the trees. The noise he had heard had ceased, as if the persons who were approaching had gone in another direction. Michel stood for a long time, motionless as a statue, and as it were bereft of reason. After so many fascinating illusions, after such mighty efforts not to believe in them, he was falling back once more under the empire of dreams--at least he feared so. He dared not believe that he was awake; he was afraid to take a step--to move a muscle--lest he might thereby dispel the illusion once more, as in the Naiad's grotto. He could not decide to question reality. Even the probabilities frightened him. How could Agatha love him? Why did she love him? He could find no answers to those questions, whereupon he cast them aside as blasphemous. "She loves me! she told me so!" he exclaimed mentally. "To doubt it would be a crime. If I distrusted her word, I should be unworthy of her love." And he plunged into an ocean of blissful reveries. He lifted up his thoughts toward heaven, which had caused him to be born to so happy a fate. He felt capable of the greatest deeds, since he was deemed worthy of the greatest joys. Never had he believed so fervently in the divine mercy, never had he felt so proud and so humble, so devout and so brave.