Tears were in the eyes of Mademoiselle des Touches, who was unable to look either at the terrible Vignon or the ingenuous Calyste.  She was frightened at being understood; she had supposed to impossible for a man, however keen his perception, to perceive a delicacy so self-immolating, a heroism so lofty as her own.  Her evident humiliation at this unveiling of her grandeur made Calyste share the emotion of the woman he had held so high, and now beheld so stricken down.  He threw himself, from an irresistible impulse, at her feet, and kissed her hands, laying his face, covered with tears, upon them.

“Claude,” she said, “do not abandon me, or what will become of me?”

“What have you to fear?” replied the critic.  “Calyste has fallen in love at first sight with the marquise; you cannot find a better barrier between you than that.  This passion of his is worth more to you than I. Yesterday there might have been some danger for you and for him; to-day you can take a maternal interest in him,” he said, with a mocking smile, “and be proud of his triumphs.”

Mademoiselle des Touches looked at Calyste, who had raised his head abruptly at these words.  Claude Vignon enjoyed, for his sole vengeance, the sight of their confusion.

“You yourself have driven him to Madame de Rochefide,” continued Claude, “and he is now under the spell.  You have dug your own grave.  Had you confided in me, you would have escaped the sufferings that await you.”

“Sufferings!” cried Camille Maupin, taking Calyste’s head in her hands, and kissing his hair, on which her tears fell plentifully.  “No, Calyste; forget what you have heard; I count for nothing in all this.”

She rose and stood erect before the two men, subduing both with the lightning of her eyes, from which her soul shone out.

“While Claude was speaking,” she said, “I conceived the beauty and the grandeur of love without hope; it is the sentiment that brings us nearest God.  Do not love me, Calyste; but I will love you as no woman will!”

It was the cry of a wounded eagle seeking its eyrie.  Claude himself knelt down, took Camille’s hand, and kissed it.

“Leave us now, Calyste,” she said, “it is late, and your mother will be uneasy.”

Calyste returned to Guerande with lagging steps, turning again and again, to see the light from the windows of the room in which was Beatrix.  He was surprised himself to find how little pity he felt for Camille.  But presently he felt once more the agitations of that scene, the tears she had left upon his hair; he suffered with her suffering; he fancied he heard the moans of that noble woman, so beloved, so desired but a few short days before.

When he opened the door of his paternal home, where total silence reigned, he saw his mother through the window, as she sat sewing by the light of the curiously constructed lamp while she awaited him.  Tears moistened the lad’s eyes as he looked at her.