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"So you have never noticed before how beautiful I am?" Helene

seemed to say. "You had not noticed that I am a woman? Yes, I am

a woman who may belong to anyone-to you too," said her glance.

And at that moment Pierre felt that Helene not only could, but

must, be his wife, and that it could not be otherwise.

He knew this at that moment as surely as if he had been standing

at the altar with her. How and when this would be he did not

know, he did not even know if it would be a good thing (he even

felt, he knew not why, that it would be a bad thing), but he knew

it would happen.