She was so good and true, so pure
and sweet, so beautiful, so everything that was lovely and desirable,
"made of all creatures' best," a veritable angel in human guise. Ah!
how passionately he loved her--how could he live without her? Yet
he feared--he was almost forced to believe--that he had lost her
irreparably, and that for him hope was dead. Those were terrible days
for the poor, grief-stricken young baron, and he felt that he could not
long endure such misery and live. Two or three months passed away thus,
and one day when de Sigognac chanced to be in his own room, finishing
a sonnet addressed to Isabelle, Pierre entered, and announced to his
master that there was a gentleman without who wished to speak with him.
"A gentleman, who wants to see me!" exclaimed the astonished baron. "You
must be either romancing or mad, my good Pierre! There is no gentleman
in the world who can have anything to say to me. However, for the rarity
of the thing, you may bring in this extraordinary mortal--if such there
really be, and you are not dreaming, as I shrewdly suspect. But tell me
his name first, or hasn't he got any?"
"He declined to give it, saying that it would not afford your lordship
any information," Pierre made answer, as he turned back and opened wide
both leaves of the door.
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