d me with a coldness that had something of contempt in
it, and I saw that she treated Smith with more deference and kindness
than usual. She called him Henri and smiled on him sweetly.

"I feel that the air would do me good," she said after dinner; "shall we
go to the opera, Octave? I would enjoy walking that far."

"No, I will stay here; go without me." She took Smith's arm and went
out. I remained alone all evening; I had paper before me, and was trying
to collect my thoughts in order to write, but in vain.

As a lonely lover draws from his bosom a letter from his mistress, and
loses himself in delightful revery, thus I shut myself up in solitude
and yielded to the sweet allurement of doubt. Before me were the two
empty seats which Brigitte and Smith had just occupied; I scrutinized
them anxiously as if they could tell me something. I revolved in my mind
all the things I had heard and seen; from time to time I went to the
door and cast my eyes over our trunks which had been piled against the
wall for a month; I opened them and examined the contents so carefully
packed away by those delicate little hands; I listened to the sound of
passing carriages; the slightest noise made me tremble. I spread out on
the table our map of Europe, and there, in the very presence of all my
hopes, in that room where I had conceived and had so nearly realized
them, I abandoned myself to the most frightful presentiments.

But, strange as it may seem, I felt neither anger nor jealousy, but a
terrible sense of sorrow and foreboding. I did not suspect, and yet I
doubted. The mind of man is so strangely formed that, with what he sees
and in spite of what he sees, he can conjure up a hundred objects of
woe. In truth his brain resembles the dungeons of the Inquisition, where
the walls are covered with so many instruments of torture that one is
dazed, and asks whether these horrible contrivances he sees before him
are pincers or playthings. Tell me, I say, what difference is there in
saying to my mistress: "All women deceive," or, "You deceive me?"

What passed through my mind was perhaps as subtle as the finest
sophistry; it was a sort of dialogue between the mind and the
conscience. "If I should lose Brigitte?" I said to the mind. "She
departs with you," said the conscience. "If she deceives me?"--"How can
she deceive you? Has she not made out her will asking for prayers for
you?"--"If Smith loves her?"--"Fool! What does it matter so long as