"My cousin expects you."
It was more than a month since the Duke had seen Esperance. He was painfully shocked by the change in her pretty face. She looked hardly real. Her eyes were enormous. Genevieve and Mlle. Frahender were with her.
"Here is the Duke de Morlay-La-Branche who has come to say good-bye to you."
Esperance turned her eyes towards the Duke.
"It is a long time since I have seen you," she said simply.
And her voice sounded like the tone of a distant harp.
"You have been very ill!"
"I have been very ill, I believe, but I cannot remember very well. I feel as if I had had heavy blows in my brain; sometimes I hear dreadful calls and then everything is quiet again. And then sometimes I see a piece of a picture, no beginning, no end, sometimes horrible, sometimes lovely. Why, now I remember," she spoke gently with a charming smile, "that you are part of all my visions, but I do not know any more how, or why…. And Albert, where is he? Why does he not come? He must come and undo the collar…. Ah! my God, my God, I am wandering you see, nothing is clear yet."
She raised her arms.
"My God, my God, have pity on me or take me at once. I do not want to lose my mind!"