tled on me; my countenance changed:

"What is the matter?" she asked. "Are you ill?"

"It is nothing; play that air again."

While she was playing I walked up and down the room; I passed my
hand over my forehead as if to brush away the fog; I stamped my foot,
shrugged my shoulders at my own madness; finally I sat down on a cushion
which had fallen to the floor; she came to me. The more I struggled with
the spirit of darkness which had seized me, the thicker the night that
gathered around my head.

"Verily," I said, "you lie so well? What! that air is yours? Is it
possible you can lie so fluently?"

She looked at me with an air of astonishment.

"What is it?" she asked.

Unspeakable anxiety was depicted on her face. Surely she could not
believe me fool enough to reproach her for such a harmless bit of
pleasantry; she did not see anything serious in that sadness which I
felt; but the more trifling the cause, the greater the surprise. At
first she thought I, too, must be joking; but when she saw me growing
paler every moment as if about to faint, she stood with open lips and
bent body, looking like a statue.

"God of Heaven!" she cried, "is it possible?"

You smile, perhaps, reader, at this page; I who write it still shudder
as I think of it. Misfortunes have their symptoms as well as diseases,
and there is nothing so terrible at sea as a little black point on the
horizon.

However, my dear Brigitte drew a little round table into the centre of
the room and brought out some supper. She had prepared it herself, and
I did not drink a drop that was not first borne to her lips. The blue
light of day, piercing through the curtains, illumined her charming
face and tender eyes; she was tired and allowed her head to fall on my
shoulder with a thousand terms of endearment.

I could not struggle against such charming abandon, and my heart
expanded with joy; I believed I had rid myself of the bad dream that had
just tormented me, and I begged her pardon for giving way to a sudden
impulse which I myself did not understand.

"My friend," I said, from the bottom of my heart, "I am very sorry that
I unjustly reproached you for a piece of innocent badinage; but if you
love me, never lie to me, even in the smallest matter, for a lie is an
abomination to me and I can not endure it."

I told her I would remain until she was asleep. I saw her close her
beautiful eyes and heard her murmur something in her sleep as I bent
over a