e so much! You remember
when I was happy, proud, and respected? Who threw in my path that
stranger who took me away from all this? Who gave him the right to enter
my life? Ah! wretch! why didst thou turn the first day he followed you?
Why didst thou receive him as a brother? Why didst thou open thy door,
and why didst thou hold out thy hand? Octave, Octave, why have you loved
me if all is to end thus?"

She was about to faint as I led her to a chair where she sank down and
her head fell on my shoulder. The terrible effort she had made in
speaking to me so bitterly had broken her down. Instead of an outraged
woman I found now only a suffering child. Her eyes closed and she was
motionless.

When she regained consciousness she complained of extreme languor, and
begged to be left alone that she might rest. She could hardly walk; I
carried her gently to her room and placed her on the bed. There was no
mark of suffering on her face: she was resting from her sorrow as from
great fatigue, and seemed not even to remember it. Her feeble and
delicate body yielded without a struggle; the strain had been too great.
She held my hand in hers; I kissed her; our lips met in loving union, and
after the cruel scene through which she had passed, she slept smilingly
on my heart as on the first day.

CHAPTER VI

SELF-SACRIFICE THE SOLUTION

Brigitte slept. Silent, motionless, I sat near her. As a husbandman, when
the storm has passed, counts the sheaves that remain in his devastated
field, thus I began to estimate the evil I had done.

The more I thought of it, the more irreparable I felt it to be. Certain
sorrows, by their very excess, warn us of their limits, and the more
shame and remorse I experienced, the more I felt that after such a scene,
nothing remained for us to do but to say adieu. Whatever courage Brigitte
had shown, she had drunk to the dregs the bitter cup of her sad love;
unless I wished to see her die, I must give her repose. She had often
addressed cruel reproaches to me, and had, perhaps, on certain other
occasions shown more anger than in this scene; but what she had said this
time was not dictated by offended pride; it was the truth, which, hidden
closely in her heart, had broken it in escaping.

Our present relations, and the fact that I had refused to go away with
her, destroyed all hope; she desired to pardon me, but she had not the
power. This slumber even, this deathlike sleep of one who could suffer n