e that I have met you since, their impress is revived. I was
shaken from head to foot when I first saw you; the mere
presentiment of your coming overcame me. Neither time nor my firm
will has enabled me to conquer that imperious sense of pleasure. I
asked myself involuntarily, "What must be such joys?" Our mutual
looks, the respectful kisses you laid upon my hand, the pressure
of my arm on yours, your voice with its tender tones,--all, even
the slightest things, shook me so violently that clouds obscured
my sight; the murmur of rebellious senses filled my ears. Ah! if
in those moments when outwardly I increased my coldness you had
taken me in your arms I should have died of happiness. Sometimes I
desired it, but prayer subdued the evil thought. Your name uttered
by my children filled my heart with warmer blood, which gave color
to my cheeks; I laid snares for my poor Madeleine to induce her to
say it, so much did I love the tumults of that sensation. Ah! what
shall I say to you? Your writing had a charm; I gazed at your
letters as we look at a portrait.

If on that first day you obtained some fatal power over me,
conceive, dear friend, how infinite that power became when it was
given to me to read your soul. What delights filled me when I
found you so pure, so absolutely truthful, gifted with noble
qualities, capable of noblest things, and already so tried! Man
and child, timid yet brave! What joy to find we both were
consecrated by a common grief! Ever since that evening when we
confided our childhoods to each other, I have known that to lose
you would be death,--yes, I have kept you by me selfishly. The
certainty felt by Monsieur de la Berge that I should die if I lost
you touched him deeply, for he read my soul. He knew how necessary
I was to my children and the count; he did not command me to
forbid you my house, for I promised to continue pure in deed and
thought. "Thought," he said to me, "is involuntary, but it can be
watched even in the midst of anguish." "If I think," I replied,
"all will be lost; save me from myself. Let him remain beside me
and keep me pure!" The good old man, though stern, was moved by my
sincerity. "Love him as you would a son, and give him your
daughter," he said. I accepted bravely that life of suffering that
I might not lose you, and I suffered joyfully, seeing that we were
called to bear the same yoke--My God! I