He saw Reine in white advancing like a moonbeam, and Claudet passing his arm around the yielding waist of the maiden.

He tried to substitute himself in idea, and to imagine the delight of the first words of welcome, and the ecstasy of the prolonged embrace.

A shiver ran through his whole body; a sharp pain transfixed his heart; his throat closed convulsively; half fainting, he leaned against the window-frame, his eyes closed, his ears stopped, to shut out all sights or sounds, longing only for oblivion and complete torpor of body and mind.
He did not realize his longing.

The enchanting image of the woodland queen, as he had beheld her in the dusky light of the charcoal-man's hut, was ever before him.

He put his hands over his eyes.