The young and the innocent always look like infants when they are asleep. Although Francezka was then nearly sixteen, she looked like the merest child, with her long lashes lying on her cheek, and the little rings of damp hair on her forehead. I gazed upon her one moment in rapture, and then turned away in reverence. Gaston Cheverny, who had been sitting by the fire, had sprung up and was giving me an embrace which all but cracked my ribs.
“Babache,” he said, in a low voice, so that Francezka would not be awakened, “I can say, like the patriarch of old, ‘Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace.’”
I shook myself free from his embrace.
“Come,” said I, “tell me what particular folly brought you to this pass?”
He scowled at me for a moment and then said hotly—and I suppose I had spoken angrily—
“My report shall be made to Count Saxe. I—” And then we both smiled involuntarily.
“Babache,” continued Gaston in the meekest tone, “I swear to you, I can not now recall one thing I have done since we parted in the courtyard of the schloss at Mitau, that seems to me on reflection rash, or ill-considered. Listen and I believe you will agree that I am in no way to blame for what has come to pass.”
Schnelling interrupted us to say that food was being prepared for us; but, had it been before me, I could not have eaten nor drunk until Gaston had told me his story. He spoke softly, glancing often toward the spot under the larch tree where Francezka’s face, like a lily flower, lay.