One cold dark afternoon however, as he thus paced to and fro, he saw the Princesse D'Agramont at a window beckoning him, and with a sickening terror at his heart, he obeyed the signal.
"I wish you would come and talk to her!" said the Princesse as she greeted him, with tears in her bright eyes. "She must be roused from this apathy. I can do nothing with her. But I think YOU might do much if you would!"
"I will do anything—anything in the wide world!" said Cyrillon earnestly. "Surely you know that!"
"Yes—but you must not be too gentle with her! I do not mean that you should be rough—God forbid!—but if you would speak to her with authority—if you could tell her that she owes her life and her work to the world—to God—"
She broke off, not trusting herself to say more. Cyrillon raised her hand to his lips.
"I understand!" he said. "You know I have hesitated—because—I love her! I cannot tell her not to grieve for her dead betrothed, when I myself am longing to take his place!"
The Princesse smiled through her tears.
"The position is difficult I admit!" she said, with a returning touch of playfulness—"But the very fact of your love for her should give you the force to command her back to life. Come!"
She took him into the darkened room where Angela lay—inert, immovable, with always the same wide-open eyes, blank with misery and desolation, and said gently,
"Angela, will you speak to Gys Grandit?"