"What is the matter?" cried Calyste.
"He has not returned," she replied, going to a window and looking out
upon the sands, the sea and the marshes.
This answer explained all. Camille was awaiting Claude Vignon.
"You are anxious about him?" asked Calyste.
"Yes," she answered, with a sadness the lad was too ignorant to
analyze.
He started to leave the room.
"Where are you going?" she asked.
"To find him," he replied.
"Dear child!" she said, taking his hand and drawing him toward her
with one of those moist glances which are to a youthful soul the best
of recompenses. "You are distracted! Where could you find him on that
wide shore?"
"I will find him."
"Your mother would be in mortal terror. Stay. Besides, I choose it,"
she said, making him sit down upon the sofa. "Don't pity me. The tears
you see are the tears a woman likes to shed. We have a faculty that is
not in man,--that of abandoning ourselves to our nervous nature and
driving our feelings to an extreme. By imagining certain situations
and encouraging the imagination we end in tears, and sometimes in
serious states of illness or disorder.
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