She seemed, in truth and for the moment, transformed.

Her blue eyes filled with tears, her lips moved; nor have I ever seen anything bear so near a resemblance to those pictures of the Virgin Mary which Romans worship as madame did then.
The change, however, was as evanescent as it was admirable.

In an instant she seemed to collapse.

She struck her hands to her face and moaned, and I saw tears, which she vainly strove to restrain, dropping through her fingers.

'Too late!' she murmured, in a tone of anguish which wrung my heart.