sadness entered my heart yesterday when I found
that I must give up the joy of seeing you. One single thought held
me back from the arms of Death!--It was thy will! To stay away was
to do thy will, to obey an order from thee. Oh! Charles, I was so
pretty; I looked a lovelier woman for you than that beautiful
German princess whom you gave me for an example, whom I have
studied at the Opera. And yet--you might have thought that I had
overstepped the limits of my nature. You have left me no
confidence in myself; perhaps I am plain after all. Oh! I loathe
myself, I dream of my radiant Charles Edward, and my brain turns.
I shall go mad, I know I shall. Do not laugh, do not talk to me of
the fickleness of women. If we are inconstant, _you_ are strangely
capricious. You take away the hours of love that made a poor
creature's happiness for ten whole days; the hours on which she
drew to be charming and kind to all that came to see her! After
all, you were the source of my kindness to _him_; you do not know
what pain you give him. I wonder what I must do to keep you, or
simply to keep the right to be yours sometimes.... When I think
that you never would come here to me!... With what delicious
emotion I would wait upon you!--There are other women more favored
than I. There are women to whom you say, 'I love you.' To me you
have never said more than 'You are a good girl.' Certain speeches
of yours, though you do not know it, gnaw at my heart. Clever men
sometimes ask me what I am thinking.... I am thinking of my
self-abasement--the prostration of the poorest outcast in the
presence of the Saviour.

"There are still three more pages, you see. La Palferine allowed me to
take the letter, with the traces of tears that still seemed hot upon it!
Here was proof of the truth of his story. Marcas, a shy man enough with
women, was in ecstacies over a second which he read in his corner before
lighting his pipe with it.

"'Why, any woman in love will write that sort of thing!' cried La
Palferine. 'Love gives all women intelligence and style, which proves
that here in France style proceeds from the matter and not from the
words. See now how well this is thought out, how clear-headed sentiment
is'--and with that he reads us another letter, far superior to the
artificial and labored productions which we novelists write.

"One day poor Claudine heard that La Palferine was in a critical
positio