For now I know that we shall be friends.

You will be relieved of an odious part; for you are too handsome not to have in keeping some other heart besides your own." He then began gaily to describe some of his humorous adventures, and continued in this vein till they arrived once more at the chateau.
Sometimes the countess laughed, but he could see that her sprightliness was gone.

When they came under the porte cochere he sprang from his horse and assisted her to dismount; and he did not relinquish her hand till he had given it a friendly pressure.

She stood motionless on the steps, centered a look on him which he failed to interpret, then ran swiftly into the hall, thence to her room, the door of which she bolted.
"It would not be difficult," he mused, communing with the thought which had come to him.

"It would be something real, and not a chimera." He turned over the horses to the grooms, and went in search of Fitzgerald to inform him of his discovery; but the Englishman was nowhere to be found.