"
"Madame de Portenduere?"
"Portenduere, did you say?" replied the sleeper. "Perhaps so. But
there's no danger; he is not in the neighbourhood."
"Have they spoken to each other?" asked the doctor.
"Never. They have looked at one another. She thinks him charming. He
is, in fact, a fine man; he has a good heart. She sees him from her
window; they see each other in church. But the young man no longer
thinks of her."
"His name?"
"Ah! to tell you that I must read it, or hear it. He is named
Savinien; she has just spoken his name; she thinks it sweet to say;
she has looked in the almanac for his fete-day and marked a red dot
against it,--child's play, that. Ah! she will love well, with as much
strength as purity; she is not a girl to love twice; love will so dye
her soul and fill it that she will reject all other sentiments."
"Where do you see that?"
"In her. She will know how to suffer; she inherits that; her father
and her mother suffered much."
The last words overcame the doctor, who felt less shaken than
surprised. It is proper to state that between her sentences the woman
paused for several minutes, during which time her attention became
more and more concentrated.
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