ve on trustfulness. The woman who
before she says a word or mounts her horse, must ask herself
whether a celestial Henriette might not have spoken better,
whether a rider like Arabella was not more graceful, that woman
you may be very sure, will tremble in all her members. You
certainly have given me a desire to receive a few of those
intoxicating bouquets--but you say you will make no more. There
are many other things you dare no longer do; thoughts and
enjoyments you can never reawaken. No woman, and you ought to know
this, will be willing to elbow in your heart the phantom whom you
hold there.

You ask me to love you out of Christian charity. I could do much,
I candidly admit, for charity; in fact I could do all--except
love. You are sometimes wearisome and wearied; you call your
dulness melancholy. Very good,--so be it; but all the same it is
intolerable, and causes much cruel anxiety to one who loves you. I
have often found the grave of that saint between us. I have
searched my own heart, I know myself, and I own I do not wish to
die as she did. If you tired out Lady Dudley, who is a very
distinguished woman, I, who have not her passionate desires,
should, I fear, turn coldly against you even sooner than she did.
Come, let us suppress love between us, inasmuch as you can find
happiness only with the dead, and let us be merely friends--I wish
it.

Ah! my dear count, what a history you have told me! At your
entrance into life you found an adorable woman, a perfect
mistress, who thought of your future, made you a peer, loved you
to distraction, only asked that you would be faithful to her, and
you killed her! I know nothing more monstrous. Among all the
passionate and unfortunate young men who haunt the streets of
Paris, I doubt if there is one who would not stay virtuous ten
years to obtain one half of the favors you did not know how to
value! When a man is loved like that how can he ask more? Poor
woman! she suffered indeed; and after you have written a few
sentimental phrases you think you have balanced your account with
her coffin. Such, no doubt, is the end that awaits my tenderness
for you. Thank you, dear count, I will have no rival on either
side of the grave. When a man has such a crime upon his
conscience, at least he ought not to tell of it. I made you an
imprudent request; but I was true to my woman's part as a daughter
of