For several days, Gerfaut followed, with unrelenting perseverance, the plan which he had mapped out in that eventful night. The most exacting woman could but appear satisfied with the politeness he displayed toward Madame de Bergenheim, but nothing in his conduct showed the slightest desire for an explanation. He was so careful of every look, gesture, and word of his, that it would have been impossible to discover the slightest difference in his actions toward Mademoiselle de Corandeuil, and the manner in which he treated Clemence. His choicest attentions and most particular efforts at amiability were bestowed upon Aline. He used as much caution as cunning, in his little game, for he knew that in spite of her inclination to be jealous, Madame de Bergenheim would never believe in a sudden desertion, and that she would surely discover the object of his ruse, if he made the mistake of exaggerating it in the least.
While renouncing the idea of a direct attack, he did not work with any less care to fortify his position. He redoubled his activity in widening the breach between the old aunt and the husband, following the principles of military art, that one should become master of the exterior works of a stronghold before seriously attacking its ramparts.
It was, in a way, by reflection that Octave’s passion reached Clemence. Every few moments she learned some detail of this indirect attack, to which it was impossible for her to raise any objections.
“Monsieur de Gerfaut has promised to spend a fortnight longer with us,” said her aunt to her, in a jeering tone.
“Really, Gerfaut is very obliging,” said her husband, in his turn; “he thinks it very strange that we have not had a genealogical tree made to put in the drawing-room. He pretends that it is an indispensable complement to my collection of family portraits, and he offers to do me the favor of assuming charge of it. It seems, from what your aunt tells me, that he is very learned in heraldry. Would you believe it, he spent the whole morning in the library looking over files of old manuscripts? I am delighted, for this will prolong his stay here. He is a very charming fellow; a Liberal in politics, but a gentleman at heart. Marillac, who is a superb penman, undertakes to make a fair copy of the genealogy and to illuminate the crests. Do you know, we can not find my great-grandmother Cantelescar’s coat-of-arms? But, my darling, it seems to me that you are not very kindly disposed toward your cousin Gerfaut.”
Madame de Bergenheim, when these remarks and various others of a similar nature came up, tried to change the conversation, but she felt an antipathy for her husband bordering upon aversion. For lack of intelligence is one of the faults women can pardon the least; they look upon a confidence which is lulled into security by faith in their honor, and a blindness which does not suspect the possibility of a fall, as positive crimes.
“Look at these pretty verses Monsieur de Gerfaut has written in my album, Clemence,” said Aline, in her turn. During vacation, among her other pleasures forbidden her at the Sacred Heart, the young girl had purchased a superbly bound album, containing so far but two ugly sketches in sepia, one very bad attempt in water-colors, and the verses in question. She called this “my album!” as she called a certain little blank book, “my diary!” To the latter she confided every night the important events of the day. This book had assumed such proportions, during the last few days, that it threatened to reach the dimensions of the Duchesse d’Abrantes’ memoires, but if the album was free to public admiration, nobody ever saw the diary, and Justine herself never had been able to discover the sanctuary that concealed this mysterious manuscript.
Aline was not so pleasantly received as the others, and Madame de Bergenheim hardly concealed the ill-humor her pretty sister-in-law’s beaming face caused her every time Octave’s name was mentioned.
The latter’s diplomatic conduct was bearing fruit, and his expectations were being fulfilled with a precision which proved the correctness of his calculations.
In the midst of all the contradictory sentiments of fear, remorse, vexation, love, and jealousy, Clemence’s head was so turned, at times, that she did not know what she did want. She found herself in one of those situations when a woman of a complex and mobile character whom all sensations impress, passes, with surprising facility, from one resolve to another entirely opposed to it. After being frightened beyond measure by her lover’s presence in her husband’s house, she ended by becoming accustomed to it, and then by ridiculing her first terror.
“Truly,” she thought, at times, “I was too silly thus to torment myself and make myself ill; I was wanting in self-respect to mistrust myself to such an extent, and to see danger where there was none. He can not expect to make himself so very formidable while scrawling this genealogical tree. If he came one hundred leagues from Paris for that, he really does not merit such severe treatment.”
Then, having thus reassured herself against the perils of her position, without realizing that to fear danger less was to embolden love, she proceeded to examine her lover’s conduct.
“He seems perfectly resigned,” she said, to herself; “not one word or glance for two days! Since he resigns himself so easily, he might, it seems to me, obey me entirely and go away; or, if he wishes to disobey me, he might do it in a less disagreeable manner. For really, his manner is almost rude; he might at least remember that I am his hostess, and that he is in my house. I do not see what pleasure he can take in talking to this little girl. I wager that his only object is to annoy me! He deceives himself most assuredly; it is all the same to me! But Aline takes all this seriously! She has become very coquettish, the last few days! It certainly is very wrong for him to try to turn this child’s head. I should like to know what he would say to justify himself.”
Thus, little by little, she mentally reached the point to which Octave wished to bring her. The desire for an explanation with him, which she dared not admit to herself at first from a feeling of pride, became greater from day to day, and at last Octave himself could not have longed more ardently for an interview. Now that Octave seemed to forget her, she realized that she loved him almost to adoration. She reproached herself for her harshness toward him more than she had ever reproached herself for her weakness. Her antipathy for all that did not concern him increased to such a degree that the most simple of household duties became odious to her. It seemed to her that all the people about her were enemies bent upon separating her from happiness, for happiness was Octave; and this happiness, made up of words, letters, glances from him, was lost!
The evening of the fourth day, she found this torture beyond her strength.
“I shall become insane,” she thought; “to-morrow I will speak to him.”
Gerfaut was saying to himself, at nearly the same moment: “To-morrow I will have a talk with her.” Thus, by a strange sympathy, their hearts seemed to understand each other in spite of their separation. But what was an irresistible attraction in Clemence was only a determination resulting from almost a mathematical calculation on her lover’s part. By the aid of this gift of second sight which intelligent men who are in love sometimes possess, he had followed, degree by degree, the variations of her heart, without her saying one word; and in spite of the veil of scorn and indifference with which she still had the courage to shield herself, he had not lost a single one of the tortures she had endured for the last four days. Now he thought that he had discovered enough to allow him to risk a step that, until then, he would have deemed dangerous; and with the egotism common to all men, even the best of lovers, he trusted in the weakness born of sorrow.
The next day a hunting party was arranged with some of the neighbors. Early in the morning, Bergenheim and Marillac started for the rendezvous, which was at the foot of the large oak-tree where the artist’s tete-a-tete had been so cruelly interrupted. Gerfaut refused to join them, under the pretence of finishing an article for the ‘Revue de Paris’, and remained at home with the three ladies. As soon as dinner was ended, he went to his room in order to give a semblance of truth to his excuse.
He had been busying himself for some time trimming a quill pen at the window, which looked out upon the park, when he saw in the garden, directly beneath him, Constance’s forefeet and nose; soon the dog jumped upon the sill in order to warm herself in the sun.
“The old lady has entered her sanctuary,” thought Gerfaut, who knew that it was as impossible to see Constance without her mistress as St.-Roch without his dog.
A moment later he saw Justine and Mademoiselle de Corandeuil’s maid starting off, arm in arm, as if they were going for a promenade. Finally, he had hardly written half a page, when he noticed Aline opposite his window, with a straw hat upon her head and a watering-pot in her hand. A servant carried a bucket of water and placed it near a mass of dahlias, which the young girl had taken under her protection, and she at once set about her work with great zeal.
“Now,” said Gerfaut, “let us see whether the place is approachable.” And closing his desk, he stealthily descended the stairs.
After crossing the vestibule on the first floor, and a small gallery decorated with commonplace pictures, he found himself at the library door. Thanks to the genealogical tree which he had promised to compile, he possessed a key to this room, which was not usually open. By dint of preaching about the danger in certain reading for young girls, Mademoiselle de Corandeuil had caused this system of locking-up, especially designed to preserve Aline from the temptation of opening certain novels which the old lady rejected en masse. “Young girls did not read novels in 1780,” she would say. This put an end to all discussion and cut short the protestations of the young girl, who was brought up exclusively upon a diet of Le Ragois and Mentelle’s geography, and such solid mental food.
Several large books and numerous manuscripts were spread out upon the table in the library, together with a wide sheet of Holland paper, upon which was sketched the family tree of the Bergenheims. Instead of going to work, however, Gerfaut locked the door, and then went across the room and pressed a little knob which opened a small door no one would have noticed at first.
Leather bands representing the binding of books, like those which covered the rest of the walls, made it necessary for one to be informed of the existence of this secret exit in order to distinguish it from the rest of the room. This door had had a singular attraction for Gerfaut ever since the day he first discovered it. After silently opening it, he found himself in a small passage at the end of which was a small spiral staircase leading to the floor above. A cat creeping to surprise a bird asleep could not have walked more stealthily than he, as he mounted the stairs.
When he crossed the last step, he found himself in a small room, filled with wardrobes, lighted by a small glass door covered with a muslin curtain. This door opened into a little parlor which separated Madame de Bergenheim’s private sitting-room from her sleeping-apartment. The only window was opposite the closet and occupied almost the whole of the woodwork, the rest of which was hung with pearl-gray stuff with lilac figures upon it. A broad, low divan, covered with the same material as the hanging, occupied the space in front of the window. It was the only piece of furniture, and it seemed almost impossible to introduce even one chair more.
The blinds were carefully closed, as well as the double curtains, and they let in so little light that Octave had to accustom himself to the obscurity before he could distinguish Madame de Bergenheim through the muslin, curtains and the glass door. She was lying upon the divan, with her head turned in his direction and a book in her hand. He first thought her asleep, but soon noticed her gleaming eyes fastened upon the ceiling.
“She is not asleep, she does not read, then she is thinking of me!” said he to himself, by a logical deduction he believed incontestable.
After a moment’s hesitation, seeing that the young woman remained motionless, Gerfaut tried to turn the handle of the door as softly as possible so as to make his entrance quietly. The bolt had just noiselessly slipped in the lock when the drawing-room door suddenly opened, a flood of light inundated the floor, and Aline appeared upon the threshold, watering-pot in hand.
The young girl stopped an instant, for she thought her sister-in-law was asleep; but, meeting in the shade Clemence’s sparkling eyes, she entered, saying in a fresh, silvery voice:
“All my flowers are doing well; I have come to water yours.”
Madame de Bergenheim made no reply, but her eyebrows contracted slightly as she watched the young girl kneel before a superb datura. This almost imperceptible symptom, and the rather ill-humored look, foretold a storm. A few drops of water falling upon the floor gave her the needed pretext, and Gerfaut, as much in love as he was, could not help thinking of the fable of the wolf and the lamb, when he heard the lady of his thoughts exclaim, in an impatient tone:
“Let those flowers alone; they do not need to be watered. Do you not see that you are wetting the floor?”
Aline turned around and looked at the scolder for a moment; then, placing her watering-pot upon the floor, she darted toward the divan like a kitten that has just received a blow from its mother’s paw and feels authorized to play with her. Madame de Bergenheim tried to rise at this unexpected attack; but before she could sit up, she was thrown back upon the cushions by the young girl, who seized both her hands and kissed her on each cheek.
“Good gracious! how cross you have been for the last few days!” cried Aline, pressing her sister’s hands. “Are you going to be like your aunt? You do nothing but scold now. What have I done? Are you vexed with me? Do you not love me any longer?”
Clemence felt a sort of remorse at this question, asked with such a loving accent; but her jealousy she could not overcome. To make up for it, she kissed her sister-in-law with a show of affection which seemed to satisfy the latter.
“What are you reading?” asked the young girl, picking up the book which had fallen to the floor in their struggle—“Notre Dame de Paris. That must be interesting! Will you let me read it? Oh! do! will you?”
“You know very well that my aunt has forbidden you to read novels.”
“Oh! she does that just to annoy me and for no other reason. Do you think that is right? Must I remain an idiot, and never read anything but history and geography the rest of my life? As if I did not know that Louis Thirteenth was the son of Henri Fourth, and that there are eighty-six departments in France. You read novels. Does it do you any harm?”
Clemence replied in a rather imperative tone, which should have put an end to the discussion.
“When you are married you can do as you like. Until then you must leave your education in the hands of those who are interested in you.”
“All my friends,” replied Aline with a pout, “have relatives who are interested in them, at least as much as your aunt is in me, and they do not prevent their reading the books they like. There is Claire de Saponay, who has read all of Walter Scott’s novels, Maleck-Adel, Eugenie and Mathilde—and I do not know how many more; Gessner, Mademoiselle de Lafayette—she has read everything; and I—they have let me read Numa Ponzpilius and Paul and Virginia. Isn’t that ridiculous at sixteen years of age?”
“Do not get excited, but go into the library and get one of Walter Scott’s novels; but do not let my aunt know anything about it.”
At this act of capitulation, by which Madame de Bergenheim doubtless wished to atone for her disagreeableness, Aline made one joyous bound for the glass door. Gerfaut had barely time to leave his post of observation and to conceal himself between two wardrobes, under a cloak which was hanging there, when the young girl made her appearance, but she paid no attention to the pair of legs which were but imperfectly concealed. She bounded down the stairs and returned a moment later with the precious volumes in her hand.
“Waverley, or, Scotland Sixty Years Ago,” said she, as she read the title. “I took the first one on the shelf, because you are going to lend them all to me, one by one, are you not? Claire says that a young girl can read Walter Scott, and that his books are very nice.”
“We shall see whether you are sensible,” replied Clemence, smiling; “but, above all things, do not let my aunt see these books, for I am the one who would get the scolding.”
“Do not worry;—I will go and hide them in my room.”
She went as far as the door, then stopped and came back a few steps.
“It seems,” said she, “that Monsieur de Gerfaut worked in the library yesterday, for there are piles of books on the table. It is very kind of him to be willing to make this tree, is it not? Shall we both be in it? Do they put women in such things? I hope your aunt will not be there; she is not one of our family.”
Clemence’s face clouded again at the name of Gerfaut.
“I know no more about it than you,” she replied, a little harshly.
“The reason I asked is because there are only pictures of men in the drawing-room; it is not very polite on their part. I should much prefer that there should be portraits of our grandmothers; it would be so amusing to see the beautiful dresses that they wore in those days rather than those old beards which frighten me. But perhaps they do not put young girls in genealogical trees,” she continued, in a musing tone.
“You might ask Monsieur de Gerfaut; he wishes to please you too much to refuse to tell you,” said Clemence, with an almost ironical smile.
“Do you think so?” asked Aline, innocently. “I should never dare to ask him.”
“You are still afraid of him, then?”
“A little,” replied the young girl, lowering her eyes, for she felt her face flush.
This symptom made Madame de Bergenheim more vexed than ever, and she continued, in a cutting, sarcastic tone:
“Has your cousin d’Artigues written you lately?”
Mademoiselle de Bergenheim raised her eyes and looked at her for a moment with an indifferent air:
“I don’t know,” she said, at last.
“What! you do not know whether you have received a letter from your cousin?” continued Clemence, laughing affectedly.
“Ah! Alphonse—no, that is, yes; but it was a long time ago.”
“How cold and indifferent you are all of a sudden to this dear Alphonse! You do not remember, then, how you wept at his departure, a year ago, and how vexed you were with your brother who tried to tease you about this beautiful affection, and how you swore that you would never have any other husband than your cousin?”
“I was a simpleton, and Christian was right. Alphonse is only one year older than I! Think of it, what a fine couple we should make! I know that I am not very sensible, and so it is necessary that my husband should be wise enough for both. Christian is nine years older than you, is he not?”
“Do you think that is too much?” asked Madame de Bergenheim.
“Quite the contrary.”
“What age should you like your husband to be?”
“Oh!—thirty,” replied the young girl, after a slight hesitation.
“Monsieur de Gerfaut’s age?”
They gazed at each other in silence. Octave, who, from his place of concealment heard the whole of this conversation, noticed the sad expression which passed over Clemence’s face, and seemed to provoke entire confidence. The young girl allowed herself to be caught by this appearance of interest and affection.
“I will tell you something,” said she, “if you will promise never to tell a soul.”
“To whom should I repeat it? You know that I am very discreet as to your little secrets.”
“It is because this might be perhaps a great secret,” continued Aline.
Clemence took her sister-in-law’s hand, and drew her down beside her.
“You know,” said Aline, “that Christian has promised to give me a watch like yours, because I do not like mine. Yesterday, when we were out walking, I told him I thought it was very unkind of him not to have given it to me yet. Do you know what he replied?—It is true that he laughed a little—It is hardly worth while buying you one now; when you are the Vicomtesse de Gerfaut, your husband will give you one.’”
“Your brother was joking at your expense; how could you be such a child as not to perceive it?”
“I am not such a child!” exclaimed Aline, rising with a vexed air; “I know what I have seen. They were talking a long time together in the drawing-room last evening, and I am sure they were speaking of me.”
Madame de Bergenheim burst into laughter, which increased her sister-in-law’s vexation, for she was less and less disposed to be treated like a young girl.
“Poor Aline!” said the Baroness, at last; “they were talking about the fifth portrait; Monsieur de Gerfaut can not find the name of the original among the old papers, and he thinks he did not belong to the family. You know, that old face with the gray beard, near the door.”
The young girl bent her head, like a child who sees her naughty sister throw down her castle of cards.
“And how do you know?” said she, after a moment’s reflection. “You were at the piano. How could you hear at the other end of the room what Monsieur de Gerfaut was saying?”
It was Clemence’s turn to hang her head, for it seemed to her that the girl had suspected the constant attention which, under an affectation of indifference, never allowed her to lose one of Octave’s words. As usual, she concealed her embarrassment by redoubling her sarcasm.
“Very likely,” said she, “I was mistaken, and you may be right after all. What day shall we have the honor of saluting Madame la Vicomtesse de Gerfaut?”
“I foolishly told you what I imagined, and you at once make fun of me,” said Aline, whose round face lengthened at each word, and passed from rose-color to scarlet; “is it my fault that my brother said this?”
“I do not think it was necessary for him to speak of it, for you to think a great deal about the matter.”
“Very well; must one not think of something?”
“But one should be careful of one’s thoughts; it is not proper for a young girl to think of any man,” replied Clemence, with an accent of severity which would have made her aunt recognize with pride the pure blood of the Corandeuils.
“I think it is more proper for a young girl to do so than for a married woman.”
At this unexpected retort, Madame de Bergenheim lost countenance and sat speechless before the young maiden, like a pupil who has just been punished by his teacher.
“Where the devil did the little serpent get that idea?” thought Gerfaut, who was very ill at ease between the two wardrobes where he was concealed.
Seeing that her sister-in-law did not reply to her, Aline took this silence from confusion for an expression of bad temper, and at once became angry in her turn.
“You are very cross to-day,” said she; “good-by, I do not want your books.”
She threw the volumes of Waverley upon the sofa, picked up her watering-pot and went out, closing the door with a loud bang. Madame de Bergenheim sat motionless with a pensive, gloomy air, as if the young girl’s remark had changed her into a statue.
“Shall I enter?” said Octave to himself, leaving his niche and putting his hand upon the door-knob. “This little simpleton has done me an infinite wrong with her silly speeches. I am sure that she is cruising with full sails set upon the stormy sea of remorse, and that those two rosebuds she is gazing at now seem to her like her husband’s eyes.”
Before the poet could make up his mind what to do, the Baroness arose and left the room, closing the door almost as noisily as her sister-in-law had done.
Gerfaut went downstairs, cursing, from the very depths of his heart, boarding-school misses and sixteen-year-old hearts. After walking up and down the library for a few moments, he left it and started to return to his room. As he passed the drawing-room, loud music reached his ear; chromatic fireworks, scales running with the rapidity of the cataract of Niagara, extraordinary arpeggios, hammering in the bass with a petulance and frenzy which proved that the ‘furie francaise’ is not the exclusive right of the stronger sex. In this jumble of grave, wild, and sad notes, Gerfaut recognized, by the clearness of touch and brilliancy of some of the passages, that this improvisation could not come from Aline’s unpractised fingers. He understood that the piano must be at this moment Madame de Bergenheim’s confidant, and that she was pouring out the contradictory emotions in which she had indulged for several days; for, to a heart deprived of another heart in which to confide its joys and woes, music is a friend that listens and replies.
Gerfaut listened for some time in silence, with his head leaning against the drawing-room door. Clemence wandered through vague melodies without fixing upon any one in particular. At last a thought seemed to captivate her. After playing the first measures of the romance from Saul, she resumed the motive with more precision, and when she had finished the ritornello she began to sing, in a soft, veiled voice,
“Assisa al pie d’un salice—”
Gerfaut had heard her sing this several times, in society, but never with this depth of expression. She sang before strangers with her lips; now it all came from her heart. At the third verse, when he believed her to be exalted by her singing and the passion exhaled in this exquisite song, the poet softly entered, judging it to be a favorable moment, and enough agitated himself to believe in the contagion of his agitation.
The first sight which met his eyes was Mademoiselle de Corandeuil stretched out in her armchair, head thrown back, arms drooping and letting escape by way of accompaniment a whistling, crackling, nasal melody. The old maid’s spectacles hanging on the end of her nose had singularly compromised the harmony of her false front. The ‘Gazette de France’ had fallen from her hands and decorated the back of Constance, who, as usual, was lying at her mistress’s feet.
“Horrible old witch!” said Gerfaut to himself. “Decidedly, the Fates are against me to-day.” However, as both mistress and dog were sleeping soundly, he closed the door and tiptoed across the floor.
Madame de Bergenheim had ceased to sing, but her fingers still continued softly to play the motive of the song. As she saw Octave approaching her, she leaned over to look at her aunt, whom she had not noticed to be asleep, as the high back of her chair was turned toward her. Nobody sleeps in a very imposing manner, but the old lady’s profile, with her false front awry, was so comical that it was too much for her niece’s gravity. The desire to laugh was, for the moment, stronger than respect for melancholy; and Clemence, through that necessity for sympathy peculiar to acute merriment, glanced involuntarily at Octave, who was also smiling. Although there was nothing sentimental in this exchange of thoughts, the latter hastened to profit by it; a moment more, and he was seated upon a stool in front of the piano, at her left and only a few inches from her.
“How can a person sleep when you are singing?”
The most embarrassed freshman could have turned out as bright a speech as this; but the eloquence of it lay less in the words than in the expression. The ease and grace with which Octave seated himself, the elegant precision of his manner, the gracious way in which he bent his head toward Clemence, while speaking, showed a great aptitude in this kind of conversation. If the words were those of a freshman, the accent and pose were those of a graduate.
The Baroness’s first thought was to rise and leave the room, but an invincible charm held her back. She was not mistress enough of her eyes to dare to let them meet Octave’s; so she turned them away and pretended to look at the old lady.
“I have a particular talent for putting my aunt to sleep,” said she, in a gay tone; “she will sleep until evening, if I like; when I stop playing, the silence awakens her.”
“I beg of you, continue to play; never awaken her,” said Gerfaut; and, as if he were afraid his wish would not be granted, he began to pound in the bass without being disturbed by the unmusical sounds.
“Do not play discords,” said Clemence, laughing; “let us at least put her to sleep in tune.”
She was wrong to say us; for her lover took this as complicity for whatever might happen. Us, in a tete-a-tete, is the most traitorous word in the whole language.
It may be that Clemence had no great desire that her aunt should awaken; perhaps she wished to avoid a conversation; perhaps she wished to enjoy in silence the happiness of feeling that she was still loved, for since he had seated himself beside her Octave’s slightest action had become a renewed avowal. Madame de Bergenheim began to play the Duke of Reichstadt’s Waltz, striking only the first measure of the accompaniment, in order to show her lover where to put his fingers.
The waltz went on. Clemence played the air and Octave the bass, two of their hands remaining unoccupied—those that were close to each other. Now, what could two idle hands do, when one belonged to a man deeply in love, the other to a young woman who for some time had ill-treated her lover and exhausted her severity? Before the end of the first part, the long unoccupied, tapering fingers of the treble were imprisoned by those of the bass, without the least disturbance in the musical effect—and the old aunt slept on!
A moment later, Octave’s lips were fastened upon this rather trembling hand, as if he wished to imbibe, to the very depths of his soul, the soft, perfumed tissue. Twice the Baroness tried to disengage herself, twice her strength failed her. It was beginning to be time for the aunt to awaken, but she slept more soundly than ever; and if a slight indecision was to be noticed in the upper hand, the lower notes were struck with an energy capable of metamorphosing Mademoiselle de Corandeuil into a second Sleeping Beauty.
When Octave had softly caressed this hand for a long time, he raised his head in order to obtain a new favor. This time Madame de Bergenheim did not turn away her eyes, but, after looking at Octave for an instant, she said to him in a coquettish, seductive way:
“Aline?”
The mute glance which replied to this question was such an eloquent denial that all words were superfluous. His sweet, knowing smile betrayed the secret of his duplicity; he was understood and forgiven. There was at this moment no longer any doubt, fear, or struggle between them. They did not feel the necessity of any explanation as to the mutual suffering they had undergone; the suffering no longer existed. They were silent for some time, happy to look at each other, to be together and alone-for the old aunt still slept. Not a sound was to be heard; one would have said that sleep had overcome the two lovers also. Suddenly the charm was broken by a terrible noise, like a trumpet calling the guilty ones to repentance.
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