XXXIV.

“Return, Gabrielle! if possible, return at once; at all events, come soon.” These simple words from Clement to his cousin give no idea of the agitation with which they were written. Fleurange herself would never have suspected it, and less than ever at the arrival of a letter at once so affecting and so opportune. She even paid very little attention to her cousin's assurances as to the inutility of any further sacrifices for the sake of his family. Clement, however, had written her the exact truth. The situation of Professor Dornthal's family was of course very different from what it once was, but the change was far from being as great as they had all anticipated and prepared for a year before, when ruin overwhelmed and scattered them.

To leave the house in which they had lived twenty-five years; to see all the objects that adorned it offered for sale; to give up the place where the happiest moments of their lives had been spent; all this at first excluded the possibility of anticipating anything but privation and sadness without alleviation. Madame Dornthal herself did not look forward to the future in any other light, and the courage with which she left her native city was the same she would have shown had her husband been condemned to suffer exile; she would have shared it with him, endeavoring to soften it as much as possible, but without anticipating the least possibility of joy in their changed lives.

Joy, however, returned. It not unfrequently happens that reverses endured without murmuring receive unexpected compensations.

In the first place, their new home, though simple, and even rustic compared with their old one, was neither gloomy nor inconvenient. Two spacious rooms on the ground floor allowed the whole family to assemble not only for their meals, but the evening reunions—their greatest pleasure when all the absent ones returned. A small garden surrounded the house, and a grass-plot extended down to the river with a covered alley on each side. This place, called Rosenheim, merited its name by the abundance of flowers, and especially of roses, which on every side cheered the eye and embalmed the [pg 019] air. Their very first impressions, therefore, were quite different from what they had apprehended. Besides, Clement had reserved two or three of his father's favorite paintings, several engravings, as well as a number of other familiar and precious objects, which preceded them, and were there, like old friends, to welcome them.

In the next place, the professor's rare collections, and the works of art he had selected with so correct a taste and such profound knowledge, proved far more valuable than they had anticipated, so that, if no longer rich, an independence more than sufficient was assured them. Moreover, Clement's prospects were exceedingly promising. His extraordinary ability was soon recognized to a degree that justified Wilhelm MÜller's foresight. To tell the truth, fortune is not so blind and capricious as she is often represented, and if she sometimes bestows her favors on those who are unworthy of them, there are some she reserves exclusively for persevering industry, perfect integrity, shrewd calculation, strict economy, and undeviating exactness. These virtues—and not chance—lay the foundations of durable and honorably acquired fortunes, and where they are lacking the greatest skill does not prevent them from being frequently lost in a day.

It was one of these legitimate fortunes Clement was worthy of and capable of acquiring. His success was already sufficient to dispense his father from the share of labor he had taken upon himself, but he could not turn him from his purpose, and soon perceived he ought not to attempt it. He derived the poetry of his nature from his father, and was indebted to his mother for his force and energy. Of these the professor, with all the rare and exquisite gifts of his mind and heart, was entirely destitute. A profound dejection mingled with his apparent resignation to misfortune, which sprang from the humiliating conviction—felt too late—of having brought it on himself by a want of foresight, and thus being responsible for the ruin of his family.

He needed something to divert him from this rooted idea, and therefore the necessity of exerting himself to fulfil the duties of the position he had accepted, and of pursuing his favorite studies, was too beneficial to make it desirable he should renounce it. His new life, no longer burdened by any material anxiety, gradually became both active and serene, and when the family assembled together, everything would have had nearly the same aspect as before, had it not been for the vacancies around the hearth. But after the arrival of Hilda and her husband, and subsequently of Dr. Leblanc, the evenings at Rosenheim became once more cheerful and almost lively. Ludwig and Hansfelt resumed their favorite topics of conversation; Hilda's beauty and happiness delighted her father; the merry voices of the children resounded anew; and Clement often favored them as of yore with a lively air on his violin, but more frequently, at his father's request, with some graver melody, which he would play with such skill and so pathetic an expression as to surprise Hilda, who asked him one day how he had found time in his busy life to develop his talent to such a degree. Clement did not at first hear, he was so absorbed in some strain of Beethoven's, which gave forth a heart-rending accent under his bow. She repeated her question.

“I often play in the evening at Frankfort,” he then replied. “MÜller [pg 020] and his wife accompany me. Music refreshes me after the tedious labors of the day, and this prevents me from losing what you are so kind as to call my talent.”

Such was the state of things Fleurange would have found at her new home had she arrived a month sooner. In that case, her involuntary sadness might have excited more attention. But the serenity of the household, so recently regained, had been violently disturbed again. It was not surprising therefore that tears should mingle with her joy at seeing once more those she loved, especially as among them she found Dr. Leblanc's sister in mourning for him, and she had to be informed of another misfortune, scarcely hinted at in Clement's letter.

Professor Dornthal's life was indeed no longer in danger, but his memory was greatly impaired, and his noble mind, if not extinct, only gave out a feeble and vacillating light. This was hoped to be merely a transient state, which time and absolute cessation from labor would soon remedy. But it was a severe affliction to them all, and Clement for the first time saw his mother's courage waver. It was with truly a sad smile Madame Dornthal saw her husband recognize and embrace Fleurange without manifesting the slightest surprise at her presence, or realizing the time and distance that had separated them. It was the same with Clara; but when she placed her infant in his arms, there was a momentary reawakening of the invalid's torpid memory. Tears came into his eyes; he embraced the child, murmured “God bless him!” and then gave him back to his mother, looking at him with an expression that filled them for a moment with hope. Then the gleam vanished, and he fell back into his former state.

In consequence of all these circumstances, when the family assembled in the evening in the large salon on the ground floor, every brow was clouded, all the young smiling faces were grave and anxious, and the same cause for sadness weighed on every heart. Perhaps this was best for Fleurange, who, ever ready to forget herself, seemed to feel, and indeed only felt the sorrows of the rest.

Ah! how her sadness, which seemed only sympathy, touched one person that night as he gazed at her in silent admiration. She was sitting between his sisters, the lamp suspended from the ceiling threw a halo around her charming face, and the voice, so dear and so long unheard, resounded for the first time in this place where everything seemed transformed by her presence!

The evening, so sad for all the rest, was not so for Clement. Even his anxiety for his father was suspended: he felt a renewed hope for him as well as for everything else—yes, every thing. He no longer took a dark view of things: he was, as it were, intoxicated with hope. With what a sweet confiding look she had pressed his hand! In what a tone she cried: “Dear Clement, how happy I am to see you again”! Could the future, then, be as doubtful as he had so recently feared? As to the smiles of fortune, he no longer doubted: he was sure of winning them henceforth. He once thought himself inefficient, but he was mistaken. Might he not also be mistaken in thinking himself incapable of ever pleasing?—To this question he heard no other reply but the quickened pulsations of his heart, and the rippling of the water flowing past the seat to which he had betaken himself on the banks of the river.

Meanwhile, Fleurange and her cousins went up-stairs. Clement soon saw them all talking together in [pg 021] low tones on the large wooden gallery that extended around the house, and on which all the windows opened. Then they retired; but the light that shone for the first time that night was a long time visible, and Clement did not quit his post till he saw it was extinguished.

XXXV.

Fleurange gradually resumed the habits of domestic life—once the realization of all her dreams—and then, only then, she realized the extent and depth of the change she had undergone while separated from her friends.

She was no longer the same. No effort of her will could conceal this fact. Her heart, her thoughts, her regrets, her desires, and her hopes, were all elsewhere. Italy in all its brilliancy did not differ more from the peaceful landscape before her, charming as it was, with the little garden of roses and the river winding around it, the ruins beyond, and the dark forest in the background, than the vanished scenes—still so vividly remembered—of which that land was the enchanting theatre, differed from those now occurring beneath the more misty sky of Germany. At Florence, her struggles and efforts, and the necessity of action, stimulated her courage. The peace she found at Santa Maria revived her strength. But there, as we have said, the past and the future seemed suspended, as it were. Now the struggle was over as well as the pause that succeeded it, and she must again set forth on the way—act, live in the present, and courageously take up life again as she found it, with its actual duties and new combats. Fleurange had never felt more difficulty and repugnance in overcoming herself.

After the long restraint she had been obliged to make, it would have been some relief to be dispensed from all effort, especially at concealment, and freely give herself up to a profound melancholy, to pass away the hours in dreamy inaction, to weep when her heart was swelling with tears, and, if not to speak to every one of her sadness, at least take no trouble to conceal it.

This would have been her natural inclination, and it was only by an effort she refrained from yielding to it. But this would have shown the strength gained in her retreat to have been only factitious, and her intercourse with Madre Maddalena to have left, this time, no permanent influence. We have, however, no such act of cowardice to record respecting our heroine.

On the contrary, whoever saw her up at the first gleam of light in the east to relieve her aunt from all the cares of the mÉnage; whoever followed her first to the store-rooms to dispense the provisions for the day, accompanied by little Frida, whom she initiated into the mysteries of housekeeping, and then to the kitchen to give directions and sometimes even lend assistance to the old and not over-skilful cook; whoever saw her even going sometimes to market with a firm step, basket in hand, and returning with her cloak covered with dew, would not have imagined from the freshness she brought back from these matutinal walks, and the brilliancy which youth and health imparted to her complexion, that, more than once, the night had passed without sleep, and while hearing her early Mass, never neglected, she had shed so many scalding tears.

XXXVI.

The blindness of love is proverbial. His clairvoyance would be equally so, were it not for the illusion that unceasingly aids the heart in avoiding the discoveries it dreads. The very instinct that gives keenness to the eye is as prompt to close it, and when the truth threatens one's happiness or pride, there are but few who are bold enough to face it regardless of consequences.

To this number, however, Clement belonged. There was in his nature no liability to illusions which had the power of obscuring his penetration. Therefore the truth was suddenly revealed to him without mercy, and his newly budding hopes were at once blasted for ever.—That moment of silence was as tragical as if all his heart's blood had been shed on the spot, and left him lifeless at the feet of her who had unwittingly given him so deadly a blow!

Within a year—since the day he thought himself separated from her for ever, not only by his own inferiority, but by the sad necessity of his new position—two unexpected changes had occurred: First, in his exterior life—then he was apparently ruined: now, he felt capable of repairing his fortunes. Secondly, in the opinion he had of himself.

Not that a sudden fatuity had seized the modest and unpretending Clement. By no means; but the great reverses of his family had certainly effaced in a day every trace of his youthful timidity, and a kind of barrier had all at once melted away before him. Hitherto his worth had not been recognized beyond the narrow circle of his family, and even there he was loved without being fully appreciated. Necessity threw him in contact with the world; all his faculties were brought into action and developed by exercise. His features, his attitude, his manners, and his general appearance all participated in this transformation. The silent awkwardness that once left him unnoticed was overcome by the necessity of asserting himself, and also by that increased confidence in himself produced by a widening influence over others. This influence, at which he himself was astonished, was not solely the consequence of the superior ability he manifested in the dull and prosaic life he had embraced. But in this career, as everywhere else, he brought his highest faculties into exercise; and while observing and seizing all these details of his material life, he understood how to impart a soul to them by his dignity, trustworthiness, unselfishness, and generous ardor—which are the sweet flowers of labor and the noble result of a well-regulated nature.

He also reserved a prominent part of his evenings for the favorite studies in which he had not ceased to interest himself, as well as a thousand [pg 025] subjects foreign to his daily occupation, but exceedingly useful in the development of his mind. Thence sprang a simple and persuasive eloquence, which gave him an ascendency over every one, and caused him to be especially sought after on a thousand occasions that had no immediate connection with his actual position. Once or twice he had even been invited to speak at some public assembly which had for its object either a question of public interest, or one relating to literature and the arts, and he acquitted himself so well as to attract the notice not only of those to whom the name of Dornthal was already familiar, but of a great number of strangers. Numerous advances to acquaintance were made him on all sides, and Clement might easily have passed his evenings elsewhere than in the unpretending home of the MÜllers. But he had no such inclination. Their company satisfied his present tastes. Music, which he would not willingly have been deprived of, was the delight of his hosts; and as is frequently the case in Germany, they were able to join him in duets or trios which many a professional singer would not have disdained to listen to.

Over his whole life, with its varied and absorbing interests, reigned one dear and ever-present form. It seemed at first like some celestial vision, far-off and inaccessible, but for some time, under the influence of all we have referred to, it appeared to have drawn nearer to him.

On this account, he began to appreciate the increased consideration with which he was regarded, but which he valued so little on his own. He ventured at last to ask himself if the good-will that seemed to beam on him on all sides did not authorize him to hope sooner or later for something more, and if his favorite poet was wholly wrong in promising that he who loved should win something in return.

Such thoughts and dreams, if allowed entrance in the heart, are apt to end by taking entire possession of it; and, as we have said, Clement was intoxicated with hope when Fleurange reappeared in their midst. But his dreams, fancies, and hopes were now all crushed by one word from her—one word, the fatal meaning of which was clearly revealed by the expression of her eyes, which Clement caught a glimpse of by the pale light of the moon!

The grief that pierced his soul enabled him to realize the full extent of his illusions, and he was astonished he had ever before considered himself unhappy. For some time after his return to Frankfort, he was overpowered by a dejection such as he had never experienced. He felt as incapable of any further effort as he was indifferent to all success. His daily task became insupportable, and study in the evening impossible. Instead of returning to the MÜller's at the usual hour, he would leave the city afoot or on horseback, and roam around the country for hours, as if to wear out his grief by exhausting his strength.

Now he clearly saw he had only lived, planned, and exerted himself for her the two years past; he had given her not only his heart, but his entire life, and that life had had but one aim—the hope of some day winning in return the heart which would never belong to him now—because it was given to another! And while repeating Count George's name with rage, he sharpened his anguish by recalling him, as he had once seen him, clothed with irresistible attractions. His noble features, his look of intelligence, his taste for the arts, the charm of his manners, his voice, and his [pg 026] language, all came back unpityingly to the memory of his humble rival. He remembered him in the gallery of the Old Mansion, through which he accompanied him at a time when he was a mere student, and absolutely wanting in everything that was, not only attractive, but capable of exciting the least attention. His imagination mercilessly dwelt on the contrast between them. Was it surprising (and he blushed at so ridiculous a comparison) such a man should be more successful than he? And should he, inferior as he was, be astonished that this man, living so near Fleurange, under the same roof—At this thought a bitter anguish, a furious jealousy, took possession of him, and excited a tempest in his heart which neither duty, nor his sense of honor, nor the energy of his will, could succeed in calming. There are times when passion rises superior to every other impulse, and they who have not learned to seek their strength from a divine source are always vanquished. But Clement had been accustomed to the powerful restraints of religion; his strength consisted in never throwing them off. Therefore, he was not to fail in this severe struggle: he would soon turn his eyes heavenward for the aid he needed in again becoming master of himself.

XXXVII.

Disinterestedness, energy, and the power of self-control were, as may have been perceived, qualities common both to Clement and Fleurange. There was, in fact, a great resemblance in their natures, which, on his part, was the secret of the attraction so suddenly ripened into a more lively sentiment; and, on hers, of an unchanging confidence, in spite of the transformation of another kind she likewise experienced. And now they were both engaged in a like struggle: they were united by similarity of suffering, which separated them, nevertheless, as by an abyss.

Ah! if Clement could have hoped, as he once did, that a more tender sentiment would spring out of this sympathy and confidence, with what joy, what sweet pride, he would have regarded this conformity so constantly manifest between them! But the aspect of everything was now changed: there was no longer any possibility of happiness for him, he could now only suffer; and by the light of what was passing in his own heart he was enabled to read hers—at once open to him and yet closed against him for ever!

With all Clement's self-control, he would have been utterly unable to conceal the state of his mind from his cousin had he remained at Frankfort. But, after the days of overpowering anguish we have already referred to, after yielding without restraint to a despair bordering on madness, Clement at length succeeded in regaining his clearness of judgment.

One morning he rose before day, and left the city on foot. His walk was prolonged to such an extent that it might be called a pilgrimage, and the more correctly as its goal was a church, but so unpretending a church that it only differed from the neighboring houses by a stone cross to be seen when passing the door which it surmounted. The door was opened by the very person Clement came to see—a pious and simple young priest who was formerly his schoolmate. He was inferior to Clement intellectually, but his guide and master in those regions the soul alone attains. What Clement now [pg 027] sought was—not merely to pour out his heart by way of confidence—not even the consolation of discreet and Christian sympathy—but to recover his firmness by a courageous avowal of all his weakness, and afterwards make an unchangeable resolution in the presence of God and his representative at the holy tribunal. He had made a similar one while yet a youth, but now in his manhood he wished to renew it in a more solemn manner. It would of course require greater effort after the gleam of hope he had just lost, and the devotedness he pledged himself to would be more difficult after the revelation that she whom he loved, and must ever love, had given her affections to another. His voice faltered as he declared that no word, look, or act of his should ever trouble her, or reveal the sentiments she had inspired in the heart of one who would live near her, without her, and yet for her!

It was, in fact, his old devise: “Garder l'amour et briser l'espoir!” which he now solemnly assumed with the grave and pious feeling that accompanies all self-sacrifice.

Such piety may be regarded by some as rather exaltÉe. They are right, but it is the kind of exaltation which accords with the real signification of the word, which elevates the soul it inflames, and which, though powerless in itself, can effect much when the divine assistance is invoked to co-operate in aiding, increasing, in a word, exalting human strength!

That evening Clement quietly resumed his old seat at the MÜllers' fireside. In reply to Wilhelm's questions, he said that during his long visit at Rosenheim he had neglected affairs that required his attention. “And then I confess,” continued he, “that I have been in a bad humor, and thought it wiser to relieve you from my society.” But to Bertha, who also questioned him, in a less vague way, however, he acknowledged more frankly, but no less briefly, that he had met with a great affliction, but requested her never to mention the subject to him. Then he took his violin and began to play a strain from Bach.

Bertha seated herself at the piano, and played an accompaniment to this and several other pieces. Her husband, who was beating time beside her, remarked that their young friend's bad humor had a singularly favorable effect on his talent.

“I assure you, Dornthal, you never played so well as you have this evening.”

“Perhaps so,” replied Clement with a thoughtful air. “Yes, I think you are right.”

It was really the truth. Music was the veiled, but eloquent, language of his soul. The very feelings he so successfully repressed, the words that no temptation or impulse could induce his lips to betray, made the chords vibrate beneath his bow, and gave their tones an inexpressible accent it was impossible to hear without emotion and surprise.

When, at the end of a fortnight, Clement reappeared at Rosenheim, all exterior traces of the excessive agitation he had given himself up to had disappeared. He resumed his usual manner towards Fleurange. No one would have dreamed—and she less than any one else—that between the past and present he found the difference of life and death. She little imagined that the new and strange sympathy that existed between them revealed to him the secret of all her thoughts and struggles. She also, apparently, had become the same as before. Her time was actively employed, the care she had of little Frida and that she lavished on [pg 028] her uncle, the mÉnage, sewing, exercise, and study filled up the days so completely that it was very seldom she could have been found inactive or pensive.

Hilda, her favorite cousin, though likewise struck for a moment by the hesitation with which she replied to her questions about Count George, almost ceased attaching any importance to this slight incident when she observed the apparent calmness with which Fleurange fulfilled the duties of her active life. Only one clearly read her heart and understood the passing expression of weariness and sorrow that now and then overshadowed her brow for an instant, and saddened her eye. Only one noticed her absence when the family assembled in the evening, and followed her in thought to the little bench on the bank of the river, where he imagined she had gone to weep awhile, alone and unrestrained. All she suffered he had to endure himself, and he lived thus united to her, and yet every day still more widely separated from her.

The weeks flew rapidly away, however, and the tranquility and happiness of the family were continually increasing. The professor's mental and physical strength gradually returned. Work alone was forbidden him, but reading and conversation were allowable and salutary diversions. His conversations with Hansfelt were sometimes as interesting as of old, and he might have been supposed to have regained the complete use of his faculties had not a partial decay of memory sometimes warned his friends he had not entirely recovered from his illness. For example, he often imagined himself in the Old Mansion, and this illusion became stronger after all his children, including Gabrielle, gathered around him. But in other respects his memory was good. Hansfelt found him as correct and clear as ever on all points of history or literary and religious subjects. It seemed as if the higher faculties of his nature recovered their tone first, and were invigorated by contact with the noble mind of his friend. Thus the evenings passed away without ennui, even for the youngest, while listening to their conversation.

These evenings frequently ended with music, which the professor craved and indeed required as a part of his treatment. Clement would take his violin, and not at all unwillingly, for he saw his cousin always listened to it attentively. In this way he dared address her in a mysterious language, which he alone understood, but which sometimes gave her a thrill as if she were listening to the echo of her own cry of pain.

One evening, when he had excelled, she said: “You call that a song without words, Clement, but the music was certainly composed for a song, which perhaps you know, do you not?”

“No,” replied he, “but like you I imagine I can hear the words, and feel they must exist somewhere.”

Hansfelt had also been listening attentively to the music.

“Yes,” said he smiling, “they exist in the hearts of all who love—especially in the hearts of all who love without hope. Here I will express in common language, but not in rhyme, the meaning of what Clement has just played.”

He took a pencil and hastily wrote four lines nearly synonymous with those of a French poet:

Clement made no reply, but abruptly changed the subject. The children rose and clapped their hands as he struck up their favorite tarantella, and became noisy as well as gay.

Fleurange left the room, unperceived as she supposed, but Hilda, who had been carefully observing her all the evening, followed her, determined to obtain a complete avowal of all that was passing in her heart. She softly entered her cousin's chamber. Fleurange was not expecting her. She had thrown herself on a chair, with her face buried in her hands, in an attitude expressive at once of dejection and grief.

Hilda approached and threw her arms around her. Fleurange sprang up, her eyes full of tears.

“Do you remember,” said Hilda in a soft, caressing tone—“do you remember, Gabrielle, the day when I also wept in the library at our dear Old Mansion? You asked me the reason of my tears, and I answered by opening my heart to you. You have not forgotten it, have you? Will you not answer me in a like way now?”

Fleurange shook her head without uttering a word.

“It has always seemed to me,” continued Hilda, “that the happiness which has crowned my life dates from my confidence in you that day. Why will you not trust me in a like manner, and hope as I did?”

“Happiness was within your reach,” replied Fleurange; “an imaginary obstacle alone prevented you from grasping it.”

“But how many obstacles that seem insurmountable vanish with time or even beneath a firm will!” She continued slowly and in a lower tone: “Why should not the Count George, then—”

“Stop, Hilda, I conjure you,” cried Fleurange in an agitated manner.

Her cousin stopped confounded.

“Listen to me,” resumed Fleurange, at length, in a calmer tone. “As it is your wish, let us speak of him. I consent. Let us speak of him this time, but never again. Tell me,” she continued with a sad smile, “can you make me his equal in wealth and rank? Or deprive him of his nobility and make him as poor as I? In either case, especially in the latter,” she cried, with a tenderness in her tone, and a look she could not repress—“ah! nothing, certainly nothing but his will, could separate me from him! But it is reasonable to suppose the sun will rise upon us to-morrow and find us the same as to-day: we no longer live in the time of fairies, when extraordinary metamorphoses took place to smooth away difficulties and second the wishes of poor mortals. Help me then, Hilda, I beseech you, to forget him, to live, and even recover from the wound, by never speaking to me either of him, or myself!—”

Hilda silently pressed her in her arms for a long time, and then said: “I will obey you, Gabrielle, and never mention his name till you speak of him first.”

XXXVIII.

The summer and autumn both passed away without anything new, except some variations in the professor's slow recovery, and an occasional gleam of happiness for Clement—the revival of a spark of his [pg 030] buried hopes—but such moments were rare, and succeeded by a sad reaction; nevertheless, they were sweet and lived long in his memory.

One day in particular was thus graven on his heart—a fine day in October, when he had the pleasure of rowing Hilda and his cousin to a shady point further up on the river, which gracefully winds nearly around it. There they spent several hours, conversing together with the delightful familiarity of intimacy, and now and then reading some favorite passage in the books they brought with them. As he sat listening to the silvery tones of Fleurange's voice, and met her expressive, sympathetic glance when he took the book in his turn and read nearly as well as herself; as he sat thus near her in that lovely, solitary spot, with no other witness but her whose affection for both seemed only an additional tie, hope once more entered his heart, as one breaks into a dwelling fastened against him, but, alas! to be promptly thrust out, leaving him as desolate as before.

While he was rowing them back in the evening, with his eyes fastened on Fleurange, he saw her delightful but evanescent emotions of the day fading away with the light, and another remembrance arise, sadder and more tender than ever, which gave to her eyes, sometimes fastened on the dark and rapid current, sometimes fixed on the shore, the expression he had learned to read so well—an expression that made his heart ache with pity and sympathy, but at the same time quiver and shrink with anguish, as if a lancet or caustic had been applied to his wound and caused it to bleed!

Two months later the festival of Christmas again brought him one of these fleeting moments of happiness. On the eve—the never-forgotten anniversary of Fleurange's arrival in their midst—the whole family were reunited, and felt as if they were living over again the delightful past. The Christmas tree was as brilliant as of yore; Mademoiselle Josephine, as ready to participate in the joy of her friends as she was to avoid saddening them with her sorrows, aided in adorning it, and every one found on its branches some offering from her generous hand. Then, as in bygone days, they wove garlands of holly, which Fleurange, as well as her cousins, wore at dinner, and this time without any entreaty. At a later hour they had music and dancing, which, ever ready as she was to catch the joy of others, gave her a feeling of unusual gaiety, to which she unresistingly abandoned herself—the gaiety of youth, which at times triumphs over everything, and sometimes breaks out with an excess in proportion to its previous restraint. Fleurange's laughter rang like music, and her joyous voice mingled with the children's, to the great joy of him who was looking on with ecstasy and surprise. Her radiant eyes, her glowing complexion, the brilliancy happiness adds to beauty, and had so long been wanting to hers, gave him, who could not behold it revive without transport, a feeling of intoxication which once more made him forget all and hope everything! But he was speedily and sadly recalled to himself.

Madame Dornthal was seated beside her husband's arm-chair, which she seldom left. A pleasant smile reappeared on her lips as she looked at her children moving around her. From time to time she leaned towards the professor, and was glad to see him entering into all that was going on with his usual pleasure and with perfect comprehension of mind. All at once she thought he turned [pg 031] pale. She looked at Clement, and made a gesture which he understood. The noise disturbed his father. In an instant profound silence was restored, and they all gathered around the professor's chair. He appeared suddenly fatigued: his eyes closed, and he leaned his head on his wife's shoulder. They all anxiously awaited his first words after this sudden fit of somnolency. Presently he opened his eyes and gave a vague, uneasy glance around. Then, turning to Madame Dornthal, he said in a sad tone, passing his hand over his forehead:

“Tell me why Felix is not here: I knew, but cannot remember.”

This new failure of his memory, the name associated with so many painful recollections and uttered in so distressing a manner, put an end to all the gaiety of the evening. The effect of so much agitation and fatigue on the professor was not regarded as very serious, but it left a painful impression, especially on Fleurange, who had fresh reasons for feeling his words.

Clement, who had been informed by Steinberg of what had occurred at Florence, silently entered into her feelings, and once more the flash of joy that lit up his heart vanished in a night darker than ever.

But he could not foresee that a public event of serious import was at that very hour transpiring far away, in a different sphere from his, which would have an important and painful influence on his humble destiny.

To be continued.