Again they were separated for months.  But soon, as if by accident, they happened to be at a certain hour on the banks of the Rhone, and would sit and gaze across at each other.

Finally, one mild May evening, when Mme. de la Verberie had gone to Beaucaire, Gaston ventured into the park, and appeared before Valentine.

She was not surprised or indignant.  Genuine innocence displays none of the startled modesty assumed by conventional innocence.  It never occurred to Valentine that she ought to bid Gaston to leave her.

She leaned upon his arm, and strolled up and down the grand old avenue of oaks.  They did not say they loved each other, they felt it; but they did say that their love was hopeless.  They well knew that the inveterate family feud could never be overcome, and that it would be folly to attempt it.  They swore never, never to forget each other, and tearfully resolved never to meet again; never, not even once more!

Alas!  Valentine was not without excuse.  With a timid, loving heart, her expansive affection was repressed and chilled by a harsh mother.  Never had there been one of those long private talks between the Countess de la Verberie and Valentine which enabled a good mother to read her daughter’s heart like an open book.

Mme. de la Verberie saw nothing but her daughter’s beauty.  She was wont to rub her hands, and say: 

“Next winter I will borrow enough money to take the child to Paris, and I am much mistaken if her beauty does not win her a rich husband who will release me from poverty.”

She called this loving her daughter!

The second meeting was not the last.  Gaston dared not trust to a boatman, so he was obliged to walk a league in order to cross the bridge.  Then he thought it would be shorter to swim the river; but he could not swim well, and to cross the Rhone where it ran so rapidly was rash for the most skilful swimmers.

One evening, however, Valentine was startled by seeing him rise out of the water at her feet.

She made him promise never to attempt this exploit again.  He repeated the feat and the promise the next evening and every successive evening.

As Valentine always imagined he was being drowned in the furious current, they agreed upon a signal.  At the moment of starting, Gaston would put a light in his window at Clameran, and in fifteen minutes he would be at his idol’s feet.

What were the projects and hopes of the lovers?  Alas! they projected nothing, they hoped for nothing.

Blindly, thoughtlessly, almost fearlessly, they abandoned themselves to the dangerous happiness of a daily rendezvous; regardless of the storm that must erelong burst over their devoted heads, they revelled in their present bliss.

Is not every sincere passion thus?  Passion subsists upon itself and in itself; and the very things which ought to extinguish it, absence and obstacles, only make it burn more fiercely.  It is exclusive and undisturbed; reflects neither of the past nor of the future; excepting the present, it sees and cares for nothing.