she stopped short, giving me a glance--such a glance as women
only can give you. In that look of hers there was the pardonable
curiosity of the mistress of the house confronted with a guest
dropped down upon her from the skies and innumerable doubts,
certainly warranted by the state of my clothes, by my youth and
my expression, all singularly at variance; there was all the
disdain of the adored mistress, in whose eyes all men save one
are as nothing; there were involuntary tremors and alarms; and,
above all, the thought that it was tiresome to have an unexpected
guest just now, when, no doubt, she had been scheming to enjoy
full solitude for her love. This mute eloquence I understood in
her eyes, and all the pity and compassion in me made answer in a
sad smile. I thought of her, as I had seen her for one moment, in
the pride of her beauty; standing in the sunny afternoon in the
narrow alley with the flowers on either hand; and as that fair
wonderful picture rose before my eyes, I could not repress a
sigh.

"Alas, madame, I have just made a very arduous journey----,
undertaken solely on your account."

"Sir!"

"Oh! it is on behalf of one who calls you Juliette that I am
come," I continued. Her face grew white.

"You will not see him to-day."

"Is he ill?" she asked, and her voice sank lower.