He saw Marie in her childhood, in her youth, in her rich maturity.

He remembered her in the schoolroom spending all her spare time over contrivances of one kind or another for his amusement.

He had a vision of her going out with their mother on the night of her first ball, and pitying him for being left behind.

He saw her tender face bending over the death-bed of their father, and through a hundred incidents and memories--all beautiful, all intertwined with that lovely self-forgetfulness which was characteristic of her, his mind travelled down to an evening scarcely a month before, when her affection had once more stood, a frail warm barrier, between him and the full bitterness of a great renunciation.

Oh Marie, Marie! It was still dark when he reached Paris, and the gray winter light was only just dawning when he stopped at the door of his brother-in-law's house in one of the new streets near the Champs Elysees.