nt; I have been given to
understand that there has been between you and him a certain intimacy,
which proves nothing. I do not intend to question you; I have suffered
from it, I have confessed to you, and I have done you an irreparable
wrong. But rather than consent to what you propose, I will throw it all
in the fire. Ah! my friend, do not degrade me; do not attempt to justify
yourself, do not punish me for suffering. How could I, in the bottom of
my heart, suspect you of deceiving me? No, you are beautiful and you are
true; a single glance of yours, Brigitte, tells me more than words
could utter and I am content. If you knew what horrors, what monstrous
deceit, the man who stands before you has seen! If you knew how he has
been treated, how they have mocked at all that is good, how they have
taken pains to teach him all that leads to doubt, to jealousy, to
despair!

"Alas! alas! my dear mistress, if you knew whom you love! Do not reproach
me, but rather pity me; I must forget that other beings than you exist.
Who can know through what frightful trials, through what pitiless
suffering I have passed! I did not expect this, I did not anticipate this
moment. Since you have become mine, I realize what I have done; I have
felt, in kissing you, that my lips were not, like yours, unsullied. In
the name of heaven, help me live! God made me a better man than the one
you see before you."

Brigitte held out her hands and caressed me tenderly. She begged me to
tell her all that had led to this sad scene. I spoke of what I had
learned from Larive, but did not dare confess that I had interviewed
Mercanson. She insisted that I listen to her explanation. M. de Dalens
had loved her; but he was a man of frivolous disposition, dissipated and
inconstant; she had given him to understand that, not wishing to remarry,
she could only request that he drop the role of suitor, and he had
yielded to her wishes with good grace; but his visits had become more
rare since that time, until now they had ceased altogether. She drew from
the bundle a certain letter which she showed me, the date of which was
recent; I could not help blushing as I found in it the confirmation of
all she had said; she assured me that she pardoned me, and exacted a
promise that in the future I would promptly tell her of any cause I might
have to suspect her. Our treaty was sealed with a kiss, and when I left
her we had both forgotten that M. de Dalens ever existed.