orosini gave me the letters he had
promised, and their departure was fixed for eleven o'clock the next day.
The reader may imagine that our dinner-party was not over gay. Marcoline
was depressed, I as gloomy as a splenetic Englishman, and between us we
made the feast more like a funeral than a meeting of friends.

I will not attempt to describe the night I passed with my charmer. She
asked me again and again how I could be my own executioner; but I could
not answer, for I did not know. But how often have I done things which
caused me pain, but to which I was impelled by some occult force it was
my whim not to resist.

In the morning, when I had put on my boots and spurs, and told Clairmont
not to be uneasy if I did not return that night, Marcoline and I drove to
the ambassadors' residence. We breakfasted together, silently enough, for
Marcoline had tears in her eyes, and everyone knowing my noble conduct
towards her respected her natural grief. After breakfast we set out, I
sitting in the forepart of the carriage, facing Marcoline and Dame
Veneranda, who would have made me laugh under any other circumstances,
her astonishment at finding herself in a more gorgeous carriage than the
ambassador's was so great. She expatiated on the elegance and comfort of
the equipage, and amused us by saying that her master was quite right in
saying that the people would take her for the ambassadress. But in spite
of this piece of comedy, Marcoline and I were sad all the way. M.
Querini, who did not like night travelling, made us stop at
Pont-Boivoisin, at nine o'clock, and after a bad supper everyone went to
bed to be ready to start at daybreak. Marcoline was to sleep with
Veneranda, so I accompanied her, and the worthy old woman went to bed
without any ceremony, lying so close to the wall that there was room for
two more; but after Marcoline had got into bed I sat down on a chair, and
placing my head beside hers on the pillow we mingled our sobs and tears
all night.

When Veneranda, who had slept soundly, awoke, she was much astonished to
see me still in the same position. She was a great devotee, but women's
piety easily gives place to pity, and she had moved to the furthest
extremity of the bed with the intention of giving me another night of
love. But my melancholy prevented my profiting by her kindness.

I had ordered a saddle horse to be ready for me in the morning. We took a
hasty cup of coffee and bade each other mutual farewe