“Luc,” he said, “this alliance is an honour to M. de Séguy and to his daughter.” The bowed young man turned his disfigured eyes on his father with another kind of pride. “My God, look at me!” he said. M. de Vauvenargues shivered, but the haughty expression of his face did not relax. “You are Luc de Clapiers, and my eldest son,” he answered. “And for that reason I shall not marry Mademoiselle de Séguy,” said Luc gently, “because it would be so--unworthy.” A dark flush came over the Marquis’s face. He turned abruptly and left the room. His heavy, proud tread echoed with a sound of authority through the confined, silent spaces of the convent. Luc remained for a moment with his dim gaze resting on the door through which _she_ had passed for the last time. He could recall every fold of her brocade gown, every line and shade in her face, every curl and twist in the long, loose knot of her dark hair. He wondered where her grave was, and how she had looked in her shroud. His vivid fancy pictured her the thing of loathing into which the hideous disease she died of had turned her--and shuddered back from that image, and saw her again standing against the whitewashed walls saying, “Good-bye.” “Clémence,” he said under his breath, and saw two women--one forgone and lost, one to forgo and lose. CHAPTER III THE BETROTHED He met her in his father’s house that evening. He entered upon her through the folding doors of the withdrawing-room, and saw her before she saw him. The sight of her filled him with an almost intolerable yearning and longing for that happiness he must never enjoy. She was standing by the fire-place. A lamp was on a low table beside her, and it illuminated a gentle beauty that seemed divine to the man who had crawled back mutilated from the embrace of death. Her vows, her kisses, her joy in his presence, her tremulous hopes of pleasing him rushed back to him. Her fair figure in its setting of light, warmth, comfort, and luxury could not have been more alluring to him. Yet he never hesitated for an instant in his resolution that all the things she stood for were things that must be lost to him for ever. She was standing very erect, looking into the fire. Her gown was pink and her bosom covered with lace. She held a prayer-book in her left hand. While Luc still waited, lightly holding the curtain apart, she moved and lowered the lamp. “Mademoiselle,” said Luc. Her shaking hand shot the wick into darkness. “Why, Luc,” she cried in a trembling voice, “the light has gone out!” He noted the relief in her tone, and guessed something of the effort to which she had nerved herself; it made him the stronger. “Mademoiselle,” he said, “it is very gracious of you to permit me to take this farewell of you.” Her voice answered weakly out of the fire-flushed darkness-- “Farewell? Farewell?”