to me in those moments of weakness when reproof is killing, a
sacred friend from whom I should have nothing to fear. Youth is noble,
truthful, capable of sacrifice, disinterested; seeing your persistency
in coming to us, I believed, yes, I will admit that I believed in some
divine purpose; I thought I should find a soul that would be mine, as
the priest is the soul of all; a heart in which to pour my troubles
when they deluged mine, a friend to hear my cries when if I continued
to smother them they would strangle me. Could I but have this friend,
my life, so precious to these children, might be prolonged until Jacques
had grown to manhood. But that is selfish! The Laura of Petrarch cannot
be lived again. I must die at my post, like a soldier, friendless. My
confessor is harsh, austere, and--my aunt is dead."

Two large tears filled her eyes, gleamed in the moonlight, and rolled
down her cheeks; but I stretched my hand in time to catch them, and I
drank them with an avidity excited by her words, by the thought of
those ten years of secret woe, of wasted feelings, of constant care, of
ceaseless dread--years of the lofty heroism of her sex. She looked at me
with gentle stupefaction.

"It is the first communion of love," I said. "Yes, I am now a sharer of
your sorrows. I am united to your soul as our souls are united to Christ
in the sacrament. To love, even without hope, is happiness. Ah! what
woman on earth could give me a joy equal to that of receiving your
tears! I accept the contract which must end in suffering to myself. I
give myself to you with no ulterior thought. I will be to you that which
you will me to be--"

She stopped me with a motion of her hand, and said in her deep voice, "I
consent to this agreement if you will promise never to tighten the bonds
which bind us together."

"Yes," I said; "but the less you grant the more evidence of possession I
ought to have."

"You begin by distrusting me," she replied, with an expression of
melancholy doubt.

"No, I speak from pure happiness. Listen; give me a name by which no one
calls you; a name to be ours only, like the feeling which unites us."

"That is much to ask," she said, "but I will show you that I am not
petty. Monsieur de Mortsauf calls me Blanche. One only person, the one I
have most loved, my dear aunt, called me Henriette. I will be Henriette
once more, to you."

I took her hand and kissed it. She left it in mine with the trustfulness
that mak