That was his undoing.

Strong man though he unquestionably was, like many another strong man his strength seemed to fall from him at a woman's touch.

He had led so austere and stern a life during the past four years; of women he had but had the most passing of glances, and intercourse with none save an old female who acted as his housekeeper in Paris.

And here was a woman who was not only beautiful, but the woman who years ago had embodied all his notions of what was most perfect in womanhood; the woman who ever since, and despite all that was past, had reigned in his heart and mind almost in spite of himself, almost unknown to him.
The touch of her hand now, the closeness of her presence, the faint perfume that reached him from her, and that was to him as a symbol of her inherent sweetness, the large blue eyes meeting his in expectation, and the imploring half-pout of her lips, were all seductions against which he had not been human had he prevailed.
Very white in the intensity of the long-quiescent passion she had resuscitated, he cried: "Mademoiselle, what shall I say to you ?" The four years that were gone seemed suddenly to have slipped away.

It was as if they stood again by the brook in the park on that April morn when first he had dared to word his presumptuous love.