er on the bed. There was no
mark of suffering on her face: she was resting from her sorrow as
from great fatigue, and seemed not even to remember it. Her feeble and
delicate body yielded without a struggle; the strain had been too great.
She held my hand in hers; I kissed her; our lips met in loving union,
and after the cruel scene through which she had passed, she slept
smilingly on my heart as on the first day.

CHAPTER VI. SELF-SACRIFICE THE SOLUTION

Brigitte slept. Silent, motionless, I sat near her. As a husbandman,
when the storm has passed, counts the sheaves that remain in his
devastated field, thus I began to estimate the evil I had done.

The more I thought of it, the more irreparable I felt it to be. Certain
sorrows, by their very excess, warn us of their limits, and the more
shame and remorse I experienced, the more I felt that after such a
scene, nothing remained for us to do but to say adieu. Whatever courage
Brigitte had shown, she had drunk to the dregs the bitter cup of her sad
love; unless I wished to see her die, I must give her repose. She had
often addressed cruel reproaches to me, and had, perhaps, on certain
other occasions shown more anger than in this scene; but what she had
said this time was not dictated by offended pride; it was the truth,
which, hidden closely in her heart, had broken it in escaping.

Our present relations, and the fact that I had refused to go away with
her, destroyed all hope; she desired to pardon me, but she had not the
power. This slumber even, this deathlike sleep of one who could suffer
no more, was conclusive evidence; this sudden silence, the tenderness
she had shown in the final moments, that pale face, and that kiss,
confirmed me in the belief that all was over, and that I had broken
forever whatever bond had united us. As surely as she slept now, as soon
as I gave her cause for further suffering she would sleep in eternal
rest. The clock struck and I felt that the last hour had carried away my
life with hers.

Unwilling to call any one, I lighted Brigitte's lamp; I watched its
feeble flame and my thoughts seemed to flicker in the darkness like its
uncertain rays.

Whatever I had said or done, the idea of losing Brigitte had never
occurred to me up to this time. A hundred times I wished to leave her,
but who has loved and is ready to say just what is in his heart? That
was in times of despair or of anger. So long as I knew that she loved
me, I was su