LUCRECIA.
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��She turned out of the path and tore through the trees at random, breaking the low branches, crushing the flowers under her feet, and scratch- ing herself on the thorns. She cursed life, virtue, Palandra and Marcel in the same breath.
■What! ami condemned to live and die thus?" she cried in an im- perious voice. " Is there not one hour of happiness for me? My youth has passed like a dream. It seems to me I have not lived, and meanwhile I see old age coming on ; days, months, years roll by, and the time will soon be past in which I can choose ; but what am I saying? can I choose? am I loved? No ! no ! I am not ! I have not even the merit of having re- sisted ! It was not my strength which saved me, but his abandonment ; for, if he had followed me, if he would come now "
At this moment she thought she saw Marcel not three paces away, and the apparition, as she believed it to be, recalled her to herself, and she fled as fast as her feet would carry her.
"Have I come to this?" she cried. '•'I! I! wish to have him return? Have I fallen so low ? "
She returned to her house and went to bed, wishing she might fall asleep and never wake again. " If I could only die," she thought, " the question would be settled, and I should be faith- ful to my vows. But she could not close her eyes, and after long feverish hours, she got up and went down into the garden again to cool her heated brow. While the most strenuous resolutions occupied her mind, her steps turned mechanically toward the path where she had seen the lovers ; she followed it, urged on by a blind desire to see them, to put her feet in the same tracks they had trod in, as if to gain a little of their happiness.
Then she turned among the olive trees. This was one of those vast forests which are so common in this part of Tuscany ; a forest the branches of which hung low under the weight of millions of olives. The ground
��was covered with thick grass like a carpet ; here and there the moon pen- etrated in little diamonds and odd shapes, and silvered the gray leaves of the trees : the fire -flies filled the air, and seemed in the darkness like danc- ing stars. Not a sound disturbed the deep and majestic silence.
After walking a long time she sat down on the roots of an old tree and looked around her. Little by little a profound melancholy took the place of despair ; an infinite sadness filled her heart ; her nerves gave way and she wept. She wept, and thought as the warm tears fell on her hand, that these were the first she had ever shed. She wept for her lost youth. The days spent at Florence were the only ones in which she had really lived, and she had not been conscious of it. "Those happy hours are gone," she thought, "those hours during which I lived the life of one beloved, and I did not appreciate them then. I was astonished and did not understand. I did not know that they were to be the only ones in my life, and that the next day I would give my life for their return."
Low sobs shook her frame, and her head dropped into her hands, and she said to herself, "what does it matter? I never shall see him again, I must stifle his very memory. Oh ! how cowardly I am !"
A movement near her caused her to look up quickly, and there at her feet was Marcel. She cried out in surprise and fright.
"It is I !" said he ; " Lucrecia, do not be afraid !"
She sprang up and cried " Monsieur !"
But her voice died in her throat, and she fell without resistance into his arms. Their eyes met and it seemed as though she would read his soul in his eyes, but neither uttered a word.
After , a blissful silence of some moments, Capellani said, "This is not a childish folly. I am too old for such things ; this is the last love of my life and the only one. From the first I have loved you with the most
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