between you, would you love each other less
for that? Will your removal remove also your heart? Love each other;
I know you both think too nobly to forget yourselves."

He said all this so ingenuously and cheerfully, and with a tone of such
unsuspecting confidence, that I pressed him with emotion to my heart.
His noble-mindedness renewed my virtuous resolutions; I was ashamed of
my baseness and even of the fact that it had cost me so hard a struggle.

"No! dear Bertollon," said I. "I should indeed be a wretch if I could
betray your confidence and requite your friendship so disgracefully.
You have brought me back to a sense of my better self; I will remain
here, and the recollection of your trust in me will preserve me against
any dishonourable intention. I will remain and prove that I am worthy
of you, by breaking off all intercourse with your wife. I will never
see her alone; I will----"

"Why tell me all this?" interrupted Bertollon. "It is enough that I
trust you. Do you imagine that I have not long observed that my wife
loves you, that her love is characterised by her violent, impetuous
temper, and that her passion is the more powerful the more she conceals
it? Impress her with your noble principles, and cure her if you wish;
but be cautious. I know her; her love might soon change into terrible
hatred, and then woe be to you."

"What! Do you expect, Bertollon, that I shall cure her of a disease by
which I am myself overwhelmed? And what are you talking of the
violence of her temper? Of this I have never discovered even the
slightest symptom."

"Friend Colas, you do not know the sex. In order to please you, she
will not show herself in her true colours; and should she once forget
herself, love will make you blind."

Here the subject was dropped, and he engaged my attention by another
topic, as he would not suffer me to resume our former conversation.
The more I had cause to admire the extent of his confidence, the calmer
I became, and the more I resolved to separate gradually from his wife.
The following evening I saw her again: she was sitting alone in her
apartment, her beautiful head resting sadly on her arm. As soon as she
perceived me she rose, her face expressing a pleasing confusion, and
her eyes cast down. For some time we remain silent.

At length I asked, trembling, "May I dare to appear before you? But I
only come to atone for my transgression."

To this she made no reply.

"I ha