The lamps seemed to have paled; the fire was going out; a stern shadow fell athwart the old friends of the house where they sat in the chairs they had occupied there for forty years back.

It was as though in a momentary pause of conversation the invited guests had become suddenly aware that the count's mother, in all her glacial stateliness, had returned among them.
But the Countess Sabine had once more resumed: "Well, at last the news of it got about.

The young man was likely to die, and that would explain the poor child's adoption of the religious life.

Besides, they say that Monsieur de Fougeray would never have given his consent to the marriage." "They say heaps of other things too," cried Leonide giddily.
She fell a-laughing; she refused to talk.

Sabine was won over by this gaiety and put her handkerchief up to her lips.