te. She asked
me for money. I gave it to her, and, free then to go, I returned home.

Marguerite had not answered.

I need not tell you in what state of agitation I spent the next day. At
half past nine a messenger brought me an envelope containing my letter
and the five-hundred-franc note, not a word more.

"Who gave you this?" I asked the man.

"A lady who was starting with her maid in the next mail for Boulogne,
and who told me not to take it until the coach was out of the
courtyard."

I rushed to the Rue d'Antin.

"Madame left for England at six o'clock," said the porter.

There was nothing to hold me in Paris any longer, neither hate nor love.
I was exhausted by this series of shocks. One of my friends was setting
out on a tour in the East. I told my father I should like to accompany
him; my father gave me drafts and letters of introduction, and eight or
ten days afterward I embarked at Marseilles.

It was at Alexandria that I learned from an attache at the embassy, whom
I had sometimes seen at Marguerite's, that the poor girl was seriously
ill.

I then wrote her the letter which she answered in the way you know; I
received it at Toulon.

I started at once, and you know the rest.

Now you have only to read a few sheets which Julie Duprat gave me; they
are the best commentary on what I have just told you.

Chapter 25

Armand, tired by this long narrative, often interrupted by his tears,
put his two hands over his forehead and closed his eyes to think, or
to try to sleep, after giving me the pages written by the hand of
Marguerite. A few minutes after, a more rapid breathing told me that
Armand slept, but that light sleep which the least sound banishes.

This is what I read; I copy it without adding or omitting a syllable:

To-day is the 15th December. I have been ill three or four days. This
morning I stayed in bed. The weather is dark, I am sad; there is no one
by me. I think of you, Armand. And you, where are you, while I write
these lines? Far from Paris, far, far, they tell me, and perhaps you
have already forgotten Marguerite. Well, be happy; I owe you the only
happy moments in my life.

I can not help wanting to explain all my conduct to you, and I have
written you a letter; but, written by a girl like me, such a letter
might seem to be a lie, unless death had sanctified it by its authority,
and, instead of a letter, it were a confession.

To-day I am ill; I may die of this illness, f