With an incoherent word she rose to her feet, and walked hurriedly away.

The thought of what was and of what might have been, the thought of the lover who still--though he no longer seemed, even to her, the perfect hero--held a place in her heart, filled her breast to overflowing.

She longed for some spot where she could weep unseen; where the sunshine and the blue sky would not mock her grief; and seeing in front of her a little clump of alders, which grew beside the stream, in a bend that in winter was marshy, she hastened towards it.
Madame St.Lo saw her figure blend with the shadow of the trees.
"Quite _a la_ Ronsard, I give my word!" she murmured.

"And now she is out of sight! _La, la_! I could play at the game myself, and carve sweet sorrow on the barks of trees, if it were not so lonesome! And if I had a man!" And gazing pensively at the stream and the willows, my lady tried to work herself into a proper frame of mind; now murmuring the name of one gallant, and now, finding it unsuited, the name of another.

But the soft inflection would break into a giggle, and finally into a yawn; and, tired of the attempt, she began to pluck grass and throw it from her.