Morning wasted. Afternoon came, and I thought all was over. My heart trembled in its place. My blood was troubled in its current. I was quite sick, and hardly knew how to keep at my post or do my work. Yet the little world round me plodded on indifferent; all seemed jocund, free of care, or fear, or thought. The very pupils who, seven days since, had wept hysterically at a startling piece of news, appeared quite to have forgotten the news, its import, and their emotion.

A little before five o’clock, the hour of dismissal, Madame Beck sent for me to her chamber, to read over and translate some English letter she had received, and to write for her the answer. Before settling to this work, I observed that she softly closed the two doors of her chamber; she even shut and fastened the casement, though it was a hot day, and free circulation of air was usually regarded by her as indispensable. Why this precaution? A keen suspicion, an almost fierce distrust, suggested such question. Did she want to exclude sound? What sound?

I listened as I had never listened before; I listened like the evening and winter wolf, snuffing the snow scenting prey, and hearing far off the traveller’s tramp. Yet I could both listen and write. About the middle of the letter I heard what checked my pen—a tread in the vestibule. No door-bell had rung; Rosine—acting doubtless by orders—had anticipated such reveille Madame saw me half. She coughed, made a bustle, spoke louder. The tread had passed on to the classes.

“Proceed,” said madame; but my hand was fettered, my ear enchained, my thoughts were carried off captive.

The classes formed another building; the hall parted them from the dwelling-house. Despite distance and partition, I heard the sudden stir of numbers, a whole division rising at once.

“They are putting away work,” said madame.

It was indeed the hour to put away work, but why that sudden hush, that instant quell of the tumult?

“Wait, madame; I will see what it is.”

And I put down my pen and left her. Left her? No. She would not be left. Powerless to detain me, she rose and followed, close as my shadow. I turned on the last step of the stair.

“Are you coming too?” I asked.

“Yes,” said she, meeting my glance with a peculiar aspect—a look clouded, yet resolute. We proceeded then, not together, but she walked in my steps.

He was come. Entering the first classe, I saw him. There once more appeared the form most familiar. I doubt not they had tried to keep him away, but he was come.

The girls stood in a semicircle; he was passing round, giving his farewells, pressing each hand, touching with his lips each cheek. This last ceremony foreign custom permitted at such a parting—so solemn, to last so long.

I felt it hard that Madame Beck should dog me thus, following and watching me close. My neck and shoulder shrank in fever under her breath; I became terribly goaded.

He was approaching; the semicircle was almost travelled round; he came to the last pupil; he turned. But madame was before me; she had stepped out suddenly; she seemed to magnify her proportions and amplify her drapery; she eclipsed me; I was hid. She knew my weakness and deficiency; she could calculate the degree of moral paralysis, the total default of self-assertion, with which, in a crisis, I could be struck. She hastened to her kinsman, she broke upon him volubly, she mastered his attention, she hurried him to the door—the glass door opening on the garden. I think he looked round. Could I but have caught his eye, courage, I think, would have rushed in to aid feeling, and there would have been a charge, and,