As she stood with a tall hedge of sunflowers behind her, I started to see how beautiful she was.
'I am here in search of you, M.de Barthe,' she said, colouring slightly, perhaps because my eyes betrayed my thought; 'to thank you.
You have not fought, and yet you have conquered.

My woman has just been with me, and she tells me that they are going.' 'Going ?' I said, 'Yes, Mademoiselle, they are leaving the house.' She did not understand my reservation.
'What magic have you used ?' she said almost gaily; it was wonderful how hope had changed her.

'Besides, I am curious to learn how you managed to avoid fighting.' 'After taking a blow ?' I said bitterly.
'Monsieur, I did not mean that,' she said reproachfully.
But her face clouded.

I saw that, viewed in this light--in which, I suppose, she had not hitherto--the matter perplexed her more than before.
I took a sudden resolution.
'Have you ever heard, Mademoiselle,' I said gravely, plucking off while I spoke the dead leaves from a plant beside me, 'of a gentleman by name De Berault?
Known in Paris, I have heard, by the sobriquet of the Black Death ?' 'The duellist ?' she answered, looking at me in wonder.

'Yes, I have heard of him.