"O my God!" he said in his heart, "forgive me; until this day I believed myself to be a creature of some importance. I was proud, I abandoned myself to self-love; and yet I was not loved. Not until to-day have I really lived. I have received life, I have received a heart, I am a man! But I shall never forget that of myself I am nothing, and that the enthusiasm which possesses me, the strength which overflows within me, the virtue of which I realize the full worth to-day, were born under that woman's breath, and live in me only through her. O day of boundless bliss! O sovereign tranquillity, ambition satisfied without selfishness and without remorse! O blessed victory which leaves the heart modest and overflowing with generous sentiments! Love is all this and more. How kind Thou art, O God, not to have allowed me to divine it beforehand, and how vastly this surprise enhances the ecstasy of a heart just coming forth from its utter insignificance!" He was about to walk slowly away when he saw a dark figure glide along the wall and disappear among the branches. He drew back still farther into the shadow to watch, and soon he recognized the Piccinino, as he removed his cloak and tossed it over the wall, so that he might scale it more readily. All Michel's blood flowed back toward his heart. Was Carmelo expected? Had the princess authorized him to come and confer with her, at any hour of the night, and to introduce himself into her villa by any means he might choose? It is true that there were important secrets between them, and that, it being more natural, as he said, for him to travel as the crow flies, scaling a wall by night was a natural method of procedure for him. He had warned Agatha that he might ring the bell at the gate of her flower-garden when she least expected him. But was it not unwise on her part to give him permission? Who could be sure of the intentions of such a man as the Piccinino? Agatha was alone; would she be imprudent enough to admit him and listen to him? If she carried her confidence to that point, Michel could not make up his mind to share it. Did she realize that that man was in love with her, or that he pretended to be? What had they said to each other in the flower-garden, while Michel and the marquis looked on but could not hear? Michel fell headlong from the sky to the earth. A violent paroxysm of jealousy took possession of him, and, to delude himself, he tried to make up his mind that he feared nothing but the danger of insult for the lady of his thoughts. Was it not his duty to watch over her safety and to protect her against the whole world? He noiselessly opened the gate, the key of which he had retained as well as that of the flower-garden, and glided into the park, resolved to watch the enemy. But, after the Piccinino had agilely scaled the wall, he could find no trace of him.