The managers were astounded. What! retire from the stage in the zenith of her fame, with all her gifts of youth, beauty and genius. It was too dreadful. Yet in spite of their remonstrances she persevered. She canceled at a tremendous cost an engagement she had made with a Parisian manager. A whisper was circulated and began to gain credence that the beautiful _tragedienne_ was about to enter a convent and take the veil for life. She did not deny it when people questioned her, but she would not tell the reason why she was about to take such a strange step. She only smiled sadly when they remonstrated with her, but she would never tell why she was about to immure herself, with all her gifts of beauty, youth and genius, in a living tomb. But there was one thing that was palpable to all who saw her off the stage and divested of the trickery of paint and cosmetics. La Reine Blanche was fading like the frailest summer flower. The lily bloomed on her cheek instead of the rose. Under her large, blue eyes lay purple shadows, darker and deeper than those cast by the drooping lashes. A look of patient suffering crept about the corners of her lips and hid in her eyes. Her smiles were sadder and more pathetic than sighs, her form grew slighter and more ethereal in its perfect grace, her step lost its lightness and elasticity. Some said that the beautiful actress was dying of a broken heart, others said that she was falling into a consumption. She heard these things and made no outward sign, but inwardly she said to herself: "They are both right and wrong. I am dying because I have nothing left to live for. I have toiled and hoped for years. I have studied and practiced to get money to carry me over the wide world in search of the one true heart that was mine only, and now that I have found it I have had to give it away. I cannot endure it; I am not strong enough. There is nothing left me but to die!" She thought of some sorrowful lines she had somewhere read and mournfully repeated them: "Much must be borne which is hard to bear, Much given away which it were sweet to keep. God helps us all! who need indeed His care; And yet I know the Shepherd loves His sheep." Those flying rumors and reports only served to make Madame De Lisle more popular. She was the rage. She played to densely packed houses every night. Flowers rained upon her. The costliest gifts of jewels and rare _bric-a-brac_ were sent to her from such unknown sources that she could neither refuse nor send them back as she would otherwise have done. There was always a great throng of people waiting to see her step into the carriage every night. But in all that throng La Reine Blanche never saw but one face. There was one man who always held the same position beside her carriage door. He never spoke to her, he never touched her, but stood there patiently every night, thrilled to the depths of his soul if the hem of her perfumed robe but brushed him in passing.