"You misunderstand me," said Linda; "I speak of a deceased one." Suddenly before Julienne Roquairol's shadow passed; distant according tones from the Princess had ushered it in. "Almighty God!" she screamed, "the cursed suicide's play is true?" "He played what actually occurred," said Linda calmly. "We separate. I travel. I desire nothing but my father." Here Gaspard held out toward the Countess an arm petrified by palsy, as if armed with a drawn dagger,--the darkness made the apparition blacker and wilder,--but he broke the ice of death asunder again with cold hands, and stirred and answered with lamed tongue: "God and the Devil! Thy father is at hand. He will take it all--as it is. Does _he_ know it?" "Who?" asked Linda. "And what did he determine? Heavens! I mean Albano." Gaspard had, in a passion, at once Cromwell's imbecility of tongue and ingenuity of action; and remained therefore as averse and as far from every ebullition, even of love, as from tameness, which was to him (as he said) "even more odious than downright crime." "I know not," said Linda. "I belong to the dead one alone, who has twice died for me. Say that to my father. O, I would have followed him long ago, the monster, into the deep realm; I would not stand here before the cold reproach of malice or Christian amazement, for there are still daggers to be used against life!--But I am a _mother_, and therefore I live!" "I will see you again this evening," said Gaspard composedly, and hurried away. "I believe, dear Julienne," said Linda, "we now no longer quite understand each other, at least not to the highest point, just as we earlier differed about your _belle-sœur_, and you thought her coquetry, but I precisely her prudery, great and immoral." "That may well be true," said Julienne, coldly; "you are so truly poetic, I am so prosaic and old-maidishly pious and orthodox. To love a monster for this, because he cheats me as horribly as he does his regiment-treasury, or because he generally allows himself as much freedom as his regiment, or because after his death he still leaves parts for the remaining players, or letters to me, deceived one--" "Did he so?" asked Albano. "She praised it even as a sign of genius in him," replied Julienne. "To love such a one, said I, or such people as love him, I cannot find it in my heart to do that. Fare you then as well as may be." Linda answered, "I hate all wishes"; gave her her hand, pressed not hers, and remained in profound silence, looking into her night. She knew little of the easy and careless departure of her lost friend. That same night Linda, after a long private talk with the Knight, travelled off entirely alone, wrapped in her veil, in a carriage without torches, and no one knew whether she had wept or not.--