not been able to
refrain from asking you the cause; but to-day I ask nothing more. Does it
cost you an effort to depart? Tell me, and if so I am resigned."

"Let us go, let us go!" she replied.

"As you please, but be frank; whatever blow I may receive, I ought not to
ask whence it comes; I should submit without a murmur. But if I lose you,
do not speak to me of hope, for God knows I will not survive the loss."

She turned on me like a flash.

"Speak to me of your love," she said, "not of your grief."

"Very well, I love you more than life. Beside my love, my grief is but a
dream. Come with me to the end of the world, I will die or I will live
with you."

With these words I advanced toward her; she turned pale and recoiled. She
made a vain effort to force a smile on her contracted lips, and sitting
down before her desk she said:

"One moment; I have some papers here I want to burn."

She showed me the letters from N------, tore them up and threw them into
the fire; she then took out other papers which she reread and then spread
out on the table. They were bills of purchases she had made and some of
them were still unpaid. While examining them she began to talk rapidly,
while her cheeks burned as if with fever. Then she begged my pardon for
her obstinate silence and her conduct since our arrival.

She gave evidence of more tenderness, more confidence than ever. She
clapped her hands gleefully at the prospect of a happy journey; in short,
she was all love, or at least apparently all love. I can not tell how I
suffered at the sight of that factitious joy; there was in that grief
which crazed her something more sad than tears and more bitter than
reproaches. I would have preferred to have her cold and indifferent
rather than thus excited; it seemed to me a parody of our happiest
moments. There were the same words, the same woman, the same caresses;
and that which, fifteen days before would have intoxicated me with love
and happiness, repeated thus, filled me with horror.

"Brigitte," I suddenly inquired, "what secret are you concealing from me?
If you love me, what horrible comedy is this you are enacting before me?"

"I!" said she, almost offended. "What makes you think I am acting?"

"What makes me think so? Tell me, my dear, that you have death in your
soul and that you are suffering martyrdom. Behold my arms are ready to
receive you; lean your head on me and weep. Then I will take you away,
perhaps; but in