"I am mad--with happiness. But come, Valentine, let us be as frank with each other now as we have always been in the past. There is a name that you have been impatient and yet afraid to utter ever since your arrival. It is Michel's name." "You are right, Florence." "Well, Valentine, to set your mind at rest, once for all, I beg leave to inform you that Michel is not, and never has been, my lover." A gleam of hope shone in Valentine's eyes, but an instant afterwards she exclaimed, incredulously: "But, Florence--" "You know me. I have never lied to any one in my life. Why should I deceive you? Is not Michel free? Am I not free, also? I repeat that he is not, and that he never has been, my lover. I do not know what may happen in the future, but I am telling you the truth about the present as well as the past. Is it possible, Valentine, that you, who are delicacy itself, do not understand that if I was, or if I had been, Michel's mistress, nothing could be more painful and embarrassing to both you and me than this interview, to which I, at least, have looked forward with such delight?" "Ah, now I can breathe freely again!" cried Valentine, springing up and embracing her friend effusively. "In spite of the joy I felt at seeing you again, I was conscious of such a dreadful feeling of constraint. I am relieved of a terrible anxiety now." "A just punishment for having doubted me, my dear. But you ask me to be frank, so I will add that, though Michel and I are not lovers, we adore each other, as much, at least, as two such indolent creatures as ourselves can adore any one." "So Michel loves me no longer," said Madame d'Infreville, looking searchingly at Florence. "He has forgotten me entirely, then?" "I think the best way to answer that question is to tell you our story, and--" "Good Heavens! what was that?" exclaimed Valentine, interrupting her friend. "What do you mean?" asked Florence, turning her head in the direction in which her friend was looking. "What did you hear?" "Listen." The two friends listened breathlessly for several seconds, but the profound stillness was broken by no sound. "I must have been mistaken, but I thought I heard a crackling sound in the shrubbery." "It was the wind swaying the branches of that old cedar you see over there. Did you never notice what a peculiar sound evergreens make when the wind blows?" responded Florence, carelessly. Then she added: "And now I have explained this strange phenomenon, Valentine, listen to Michel's story and mine." CHAPTER XVIII. THE STRONGEST OF INCENTIVES. Madame d'Infreville, recovering from the alarm she had felt for a moment, again turned to her friend, and said: "Go on, Florence, I need not tell you with what curiosity, or rather with what intense interest, I am waiting." "Ah, well then, my dear Valentine, one thing my husband cannot have told you, as he was not aware of the fact, is that I received a letter from Michel two days after your departure."