"Let me prove it in some way besides in words."

"It would be cowardly to let you share my misery."

"It would be loving me enough to feel sure that I would be happy."

"And I?"

"Is not the love in your heart greater than pride? Do you not feel that
since I have loved you my love has filled all my life, and that there is
nothing in the world, in the present or in the future, but it and you?
Because I see you for several hours from time to time in Paris, I am
happy; whatever difficulties await us, I should be much happier in
Auvergne, because we should be together always."

He remained silent for some time.

"Could you love me there?" he murmured.

Evidently it was more to himself than to her that he addressed this
question, which was the sum of his reflections.

"O dear Victor!" she cried. "Why do you doubt me? Have I deserved it?
The past, the present, do they not assure the future?"

He shook his head.

"The man you have loved, whom you love, has never shown himself to you
as he really is. In spite of the trials and sorrows of his life he has
been able to answer your smile with a smile, because, cruel as his life
was, he was sustained by hope and confidence; in Auvergne there will be
no more hope or confidence, but the madness of a broken life, and the
dejection of impotence. What sort of man should I be? Could you love
such a man?"

"A thousand times more, for he would be unhappy, and I should have to
comfort him."

"Would you have the strength to do it? After a time you would become
weary, for the burden would be too heavy, however great your devotion
or profound your tenderness, to see my real position and my hopes, and,
descending into the future, to see my ruin. You know I am ambitious
without having ever compassed the scope of this ambition, and of the
hopes, dreams if you like, on which it rests. Understand that these
dreams are on the eve of being realized; two months more, and in
December or January I pass the 'concours' for the central bureau, which
will make me a physician of the hospitals, and at the same time the one
for the admission, which opens the Faculty of Medicine to me. Without
pride, I believe myself in a position to succeed--what sportsmen call
'in condition.' And just when I have only a few days to wait, behold me
ruined forever."

"Why forever?"

"A man leaves his village for Paris to make a name for himself, and he
returns only when bad luck or inability sends him back. A