* * * The word struck terror to my heart--stunned me. I was afraid to take it in. Suddenly the exact words which I had read to her in Rome, after our visit to the tomb of Pauline de Beaumont, came back to me. “She wanted to die, in order not to be a burden to me any longer.” The joy of living had made place in her for the glory of sacrifice. She had offered herself to save me from my faults, to free me from all restraints. My return, which she had ceased to expect, overjoyed her, but her belated happiness seemed so fragile to her that she feared to lose it if it were prolonged. Or she believed it alone well worth her absolute submission to the divine will. Dying, she was regaining my love. But if she recovered, what might not happen to it? Perhaps her confidence had preceded her to the grave. I could only call her by her name. And she listened to that name when I repeated it, as though I took heart of grace to say it for the first time. She was silent, to feel her joy the more keenly. She did not speak, and yet her lips stirred. I believe she was praying. * * * With a thousand precautions, the doctors permitted me to take her to the Sleeping Woods. That painful journey drew from her not a single complaint. My tenderness compensated for all her suffering. As we neared our estate, she asked me to open the windows of the automobile in which she was lying, and to lift her up. The faintest green bloom already covered the forest at the birth of Spring. At the time of our return from Rome we had found it thus. Then all the happiness, which I later spurned, was still before me. “We are home,” she said. She breathed deeply; a little colour came into her cheeks. “You are looking better already,” I said: “that is a good sign.” “Yes,” she murmured, as she fell back, “they must not know at once.” She was thinking of her parents. Her father gave up all hope as soon as he saw her. I could not misunderstand his ravaged face. For a long time he had known that some secret grief had undermined her health, but he did not believe the time had come so soon. The tenacious optimism of Mme. Mairieux relieved the situation of its tragedy. “We are going to diet her,” she said; “in a few months I assure you she will be transformed.” And even when she learned that a specialist was to come expressly from Paris, almost once every week, to take care of our invalid, she could not believe Raymonde beyond recovery. She considered me attentive and generous. The thought of this great doctor that we were putting to so much trouble was agreeable to her, and quieted her anxiety. In the old days her perseverance would have been a precious encouragement to me, but now I saw too clearly the error of it to summon hope.