ing the
prisoner's confidence. Fearing that Camille, in spite of his promise,
would spoil everything by some insult, she found a pretext to send him
away; she begged that he would go and examine a pair of horses that were
a recent acquisition.

As soon as he was gone, she changed her manner; she grew amiable, she
endeavoured to remove the ill impression of her first welcome; she put
Count Abel at his ease, who felt that the air lost its chilliness
about him. Without appearing to do so, she made him undergo an
examination--she asked him many questions; he replied promptly. Visitors
came in; it was an hour before he took leave, after having promised Mme.
de Lorcy to dine with her the next day.

She did not wait until then to write to M. Moriaz. Her letter was thus
conceived:

"August 16, 1875.

"You recommend me to be impartial, my dear friend. Why should I not be?
It is true that I have dreamed of a certain marriage: one of the parties
would not listen to my propositions, and the other had abandoned the
idea. My project has come to nothing. Camille has enjoined me never
to speak of it to him again. You see I am no longer interested in the
question, or, rather, I have in the matter no other interest than that
which I feel for Antoinette, whose happiness is as dear to me as it is
to you. Apropos, do not give her my letters; read to her the passages
that you judge suitable to communicate to her--I leave that to your
discretion.

"First of all, let me unfold to you my humble opinions. I am charged
with having prejudices; it is a shocking calumny. I will make you a
profession of faith, and you shall judge. I am at war with more than one
point of our French morals; I deplore the habit that we have formed of
considering marriage as a business transaction, of esteeming it as a
financial or commercial partnership, and making everything subordinate
to the equality of the personal estates. This principle is revolting
to me, my dear friend. We are accused in foreign countries of being an
immoral people. Heavens! it seems to me that we understand and practise
virtue quite as much as the English or Germans, and, to speak the whole
truth, I am not afraid to advance the opinion that this, of all the
countries of the universe, is the one where there is the most virtue.
It is not at that point that we sin. Our misfortune is, that we are too
rational in our habits of life, too circumspect, too prudent; we lack
boldness in our unde