neither wakefulness nor delirium.  It was the infancy of pleasure developing within them, unaware of the beautiful red flowers which were to crown its shoots.  They gave themselves to each other, ignorant of all danger; they cast their whole being into a word, into a look, into a kiss, into the long, long pressure of their clasping hands.  They praised each other’s beauties ingenuously, spending treasures of language on these secret idylls, inventing soft exaggerations and more diminutives than the ancient muse of Tibullus, or the poesies of Italy.  On their lips and in their hearts love flowed ever, like the liquid fringes of the sea upon the sands of the shore,—­all alike, all dissimilar.  Joyous, eternal fidelity!

If we must count by days, the time thus spent was five months only; if we may count by the innumerable sensations, thoughts, dreams, glances, opening flowers, realized hopes, unceasing joys, speeches interrupted, renewed, abandoned, frolic laughter, bare feet dabbling in the sea, hunts, childlike, for shells, kisses, surprises, clasping hands,—­call it a lifetime; death will justify the word.  There are existences that are ever gloomy, lived under ashen skies; but suppose a glorious day, when the sun of heaven glows in the azure air,—­such was the May of their love, during which Etienne had suspended all his griefs,—­griefs which had passed into the heart of Gabrielle, who, in turn, had fastened all her joys to come on those of her lord.  Etienne had had but one sorrow in his life,—­the death of his mother; he was to have but one love—­Gabrielle.

CHAPTER VII

The crushed pearl

The coarse rivalry of an ambitious man hastened the destruction of this honeyed life.  The Duc d’Herouville, an old warrior in wiles and policy, had no sooner passed his word to his physician than he was conscious of the voice of distrust.  The Baron d’Artagnon, lieutenant of his company of men-at-arms, possessed his utmost confidence.  The baron was a man after the duke’s own heart,—­a species of butcher, built for strength, tall, virile in face, cold and harsh, brave in the service of the throne, rude in his manners, with an iron will in action, but supple in manoeuvres, withal an ambitious noble, possessing the honor of a soldier and the wiles of a politician.  He had the hand his face demanded,—­large and hairy like that of a guerrilla; his manners were brusque, his speech concise.  The duke, in departing, gave to this man the duty of watching and reporting to him the conduct of Beauvouloir toward the new heir-presumptive.