sness one drifts into the morrow. You know that forgetfulness of
everything which comes of a violent confident, reciprocated love. Every
being who is not the beloved one seems a useless being in creation. One
regrets having cast scraps of one's heart to other women, and one can
not believe in the possibility of ever pressing another hand than that
which one holds between one's hands. The mind admits neither work nor
remembrance; nothing, in short, which can distract it from the one
thought in which it is ceaselessly absorbed. Every day one discovers in
one's mistress a new charm and unknown delights. Existence itself is but
the unceasing accomplishment of an unchanging desire; the soul is but
the vestal charged to feed the sacred fire of love.

We often went at night-time to sit in the little wood above the house;
there we listened to the cheerful harmonies of evening, both of us
thinking of the coming hours which should leave us to one another till
the dawn of day. At other times we did not get up all day; we did not
even let the sunlight enter our room.

The curtains were hermetically closed, and for a moment the external
world did not exist for us. Nanine alone had the right to open our door,
but only to bring in our meals and even these we took without getting
up, interrupting them with laughter and gaiety. To that succeeded a
brief sleep, for, disappearing into the depths of our love, we were like
two divers who only come to the surface to take breath.

Nevertheless, I surprised moments of sadness, even tears, in Marguerite;
I asked her the cause of her trouble, and she answered:

"Our love is not like other loves, my Armand. You love me as if I had
never belonged to another, and I tremble lest later on, repenting of
your love, and accusing me of my past, you should let me fall back into
that life from which you have taken me. I think that now that I have
tasted of another life, I should die if I went back to the old one. Tell
me that you will never leave me!"

"I swear it!"

At these words she looked at me as if to read in my eyes whether my oath
was sincere; then flung herself into my arms, and, hiding her head in my
bosom, said to me: "You don't know how much I love you!"

One evening, seated on the balcony outside the window, we looked at the
moon which seemed to rise with difficulty out of its bed of clouds,
and we listened to the wind violently rustling the trees; we held each
other's hands, and for a