I write to you? Ah! do not think ill of me if I
keep a gleam of hope, and give one last sigh to happy life before I take
leave of it forever. I am in a hideous position. I feel all the inward
serenity that comes when a great resolution has been taken, even while I
hear the last growlings of the storm. When you went out on that terrible
adventure which so drew me to you, Armand, you went from the desert to
the oasis with a good guide to show you the way. Well, I am going out of
the oasis into the desert, and you are a pitiless guide to me. And yet
you only, my friend, can understand how melancholy it is to look back
for the last time on happiness--to you, and you only, I can make moan
without a blush. If you grant my entreaty, I shall be happy; if you are
inexorable, I shall expiate the wrong that I have done. After all, it is
natural, is it not, that a woman should wish to live, invested with all
noble feelings, in her friend's memory? Oh! my one and only love, let
her to whom you gave life go down into the tomb in the belief that she
is great in your eyes. Your harshness led me to reflect; and now that I
love you so, it seems to me that I am less guilty than you think. Listen
to my justification, I owe it to you; and you that are all the world to
me, owe me at least a moment's justice.

"I have learned by my own anguish all that I made you suffer by my
coquetry; but in those days I was utterly ignorant of love. _You_ know
what the torture is, and you mete it out to me! During those first eight
months that you gave me you never roused any feeling of love in me. Do
you ask why this was so, my friend? I can no more explain it than I can
tell you why I love you now. Oh! certainly it flattered my vanity that I
should be the subject of your passionate talk, and receive those burning
glances of yours; but you left me cold. No, I was not a woman; I had
no conception of womanly devotion and happiness. Who was to blame? You
would have despised me, would you not, if I had given myself without
the impulse of passion? Perhaps it is the highest height to which we
can rise--to give all and receive no joy; perhaps there is no merit in
yielding oneself to bliss that is foreseen and ardently desired. Alas,
my friend, I can say this now; these thoughts came to me when I played
with you; and you seemed to me so great even then that I would not have
you owe the gift to pity----What is this that I have written?

"I have taken back all my l