of men. In refusing me
the hand which you have promised, you condemn me to agony a hundred
times worse than death. Alas! What would you have me become without you?
I must live alone, for I love you too well to marry another. For four
long years, all my affections, all my thoughts have been centred upon
you; I have become accustomed to regard other women as inferior beings,
unworthy of attracting the interest of a man! I will not speak to you of
the efforts I have made to deserve you; they brought their reward in
themselves, and I was already too happy in working and suffering for
you. But see the misery in which your desertion has left me! A sailor
thrown upon a desert island has less to deplore than I: I will be forced
to live near you, to witness the happiness of another, to see you pass
my windows upon the arm of my rival! Ah! death would be more endurable
than this constant agony. But I have not even the right to die! My poor
old parents have already sorrows enough. What would it be, Great God! if
I were to condemn them to bear the loss of their son?"

This complaint, punctuated with sighs and tears, lacerated the heart of
Clementine. The poor child wept too, for she loved Leon with her whole
soul, but she was interdicted from telling him so. More than once, on
seeing him half dying before her, she felt tempted to throw her arms
about his neck, but the recollection of Fougas paralyzed all her tender
impulses.

"My poor friend," said she, "you judge me very wrongfully if you think
me insensible to your sufferings. I have known you thoroughly, Leon,
and that too since my very childhood. I know all that there is in you
of devotion, delicacy and precious and noble virtues. Since the time
when you carried me in your arms to the poor, and put a penny in my hand
to teach me to give alms, I have never heard benevolence spoken of
without involuntarily thinking of you. When you whipped a boy twice your
size for taking away my doll, I felt that courage was noble and that a
woman would be happy in being able to lean on a brave man. All that I
have ever seen you do since that time, has only redoubled my esteem and
my sympathy. Believe me that it is neither from wickedness or
ingratitude that I make you suffer now. Alas! I no longer belong to
myself, I am under external control; I am like those automatons that
move without knowing why. Yes, I feel an impulse within me more powerful
than my self control, and it is the will of ano