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?”

He came into the room cautiously and feeling his way by the furniture. The darkness was darkness indeed to him. He could see nothing of her but a rosy glimmer where her skirt caught the direct glow of the flames.

He paused by the head of a sofa which had stood against the wall since he was a child, and gripped the smooth, familiar curl of the back.

“You were never afraid that I should ask more of you than ‘farewell,’ were you, Mademoiselle?” he said sweetly in his tired, slightly hoarse voice.

She fortified herself by memories, by the thought of the old Marquis, of his mother, by her own ideals. She tried to stifle her fatal pity that wished to weep over him, and to summon instead some ghost of last summer’s love to help her.

“Luc,” she said, with surprising steadiness, “you must not assume that I am inconstant, ignoble. You need me more than ever.”

He interrupted her, very gently.

“But you have no need of me.”

“Yes—ah, yes. This is a strange greeting for you to give me—Luc.” Her voice rose desperately. “Everything is as it was before.”

“No,” he said; “everything is changed. You know it—you knew it when you turned the lamp out.”

She was silent.

“God knows,” he continued slowly, “that it would be pleasant to me to believe what you say—to deceive myself, to sweeten my great loneliness by your loyal duty, by your tender service—by all the gracious phantoms you would conjure from the grave of your dead love—but I am not the coward who would take your sweet self-sacrifice.”

“You make me a coward!” came her voice, very low. “What am I to say?”

“Farewell,” he answered.

He heard her move and saw the blur of her pink skirt pass out of the firelight.

“No,” she said, “I will be true—I will keep my vows—I have no right——”

“Nor I,” he put in quickly. He paused a moment, then said quietly, “I have no career before me. I shall always be my father’s pensioner, and I shall always be an invalid—and, though no one knows it, the doctor warned me that I have only a few years to live.”

“Oh!” shuddered ClÉmence.

He cautiously moved a little nearer to her, treading delicately and feeling his way.

“There is nothing to grieve over—and nothing to regret,” he said, “save that I ever entangled your life with mine, Mademoiselle. Yet it has given me the very sweetest memories—and afterwards, in the long years ahead of you, when you are honoured and loved as you are worthy of being, it cannot lessen your happiness to remember that you were the fairest, most sacred thing in the life of a man who did not know—much joy.”

He paused and coughed. She was sobbing childishly.

“Your tears will be repaid you,” he added in a faltering voice. “You weep for a man who worships you, and who blesses God for having known you—and when you think afterwards of how much it meant to me to meet this tenderness I could not take, you will not regret those tears, ClÉmence.”

He heard her sobs lessen as she struggled to master her tears; he heard her move towards him.

“Take me,” she muttered. “I wish it—I meant what I said—I am yours. I could make you happier—let me—I will keep my word.”

“Ah, hush!” he answered hoarsely; “you have not even seen me.”

“You take away my courage,” she interrupted. “I could have done it—you would never have known.” She broke into sobs again. “Why did you do it? Why was everything so cruel? I think I shall go mad. Luc, Luc, I loved you—on my soul I did! I would have died for you. But why did you go away and come back changed—changed to me? You do not want my love! You refuse my faith! Who was that woman you went with? Where is she now?”

“Dead—dead—dead.”

“Ah! Does it matter to you?”

Luc felt his way nearer to her. He moved into the dim circle of the fire-glow; he could make out her misty shape.

“Do you not want me?” she asked, and her voice was steady now.

“Yes,” said Luc—“more than I ever wanted you. You asked about the—Countess. She was brave and kind and, I think, had virtues I know not of. I was never more than outside her life—she was not of the same blood—she did not understand. You do—you know what I can do—you will not tempt me.”

“Tempt you,” she repeated softly. “But if I wanted it?”

“But you do not, ClÉmence,” he said gravely and sadly. “You are only pretending for my sake, for my father’s sake, for the sake of your own ideals. And presently you would come to hate me.”

She rose and moved restlessly.

“Do—you—not believe in love,” she asked hesitatingly “in love being stronger than—anything?”

“Yes.”

“Then why cannot we—surmount this?”

Luc was silent.

“Why?” persisted ClÉmence.

He thought she was straining towards him through the darkness.

“Ah, my dear,” he cried brokenly, “if you loved me—how different! You said just now, ‘I could have done it—you would never have known.’ Do not try to deceive me.”

There was a long silence, then she answered in a muffled but steady tone—

“You are right, Monsieur. I will not dare to force on you my ideas. You must act by your own—I will not humiliate you by insisting on your taking any sacrifice. I am speaking very coldly. Forgive me. My heart is not cold. I see there was not in either of our affections anything strong enough to weather storms—and you want the rest of your life free. And I see that you cannot keep me to an old promise—a de Clapiers, Monsieur, can only behave as you have behaved.”

She gave a great sigh, as if she was exhausted, and a chill sense of desolation filled the room.

“Tell me,” said Luc—“you were afraid?”

“Yes,” she admitted lifelessly; “but I would have done it.”

“Mademoiselle, I never doubted your courage.”

“I—did not lie to you,” came her toneless voice, “when I vowed—I meant——”

“I know,” he said—“I know.”

“And your father—your poor father——”

“He has courage too,” answered Luc, and he laughed. “Light the lamp now, Mademoiselle,” he added.

“No—my eyes are too tired,” she replied hastily.

“Mademoiselle, I am going to strike a light; but first—may I kiss your hand?”

He heard her rise. The fire was dying out and he saw the long gleam of her gown in the faint beams, then her shape came between him and the glow and her hand rested on his. He kissed her fingers, then said, “You would have despised me if I had married you,”—his voice strengthened—“but now you will think of me kindly.”

She drew away from him, and seemed to be absorbed and lost in the unbearable darkness.

“I want to see you,” said Luc between his teeth.

He took the flint and tinder from his pocket and struck it with a steady hand. As the flame flared up he strained his dim eyes across it to gaze at her. He saw her in an atmosphere of fire—the air all about her was red. Her face was more beautiful than he cared to realize; her eyes looked straight at him across the flame, and they were strained, wide, and dark with terror.

The still burning tinder fell from his fingers; he put his foot on it. A voice he would not have recognized as hers came out of the obscurity.

“You—you are not—much changed.”

Luc laughed.

“Heaven bless you,” he said sweetly.

She seemed to move desperately; he heard her push a chair aside.

“Oh—God—God!” she cried on a note of fainting anguish.

He felt her skirts brush past him, the door opened, a shaft of light penetrated the darkness for a second, then the door closed.

She was gone.

Luc fumbled his way to the sofa where she must have been seated; the cushions were still warm where her face had rested, her tears fallen. He spread his hands over them and shivered from head to foot.

He had never wanted her so much, in all the days of their summer courtship, as he wanted her now.

Yet he was glad she was gone, glad it was over.

She was as lost now as that other ClÉmence who also had closed a door on him and left him alone.

His grasp tightened on the silk cushions. Out of the depths of his pain and regret flashed the alluring vision of the phantom he had chased all his life.

“Glory!” he said under his breath, “still to be—achieved—not with”—he rose, staggering like one intoxicated—“the body”—he clutched the chimneypiece—“but—with—the soul!”