is eyes. At last he went out with the air of a
man who didn't know what he might do next.

"The Baron de Macumer is in love!" exclaimed Mme. de Maufrigneuse.

"Strange, isn't it, for a fallen minister?" replied my mother.

I had sufficient presence of mind myself to regard with curiosity Mmes.
de Maufrigneuse and d'Espard and my mother, as though they were talking
a foreign language and I wanted to know what it was all about, but
inwardly my soul sank in the waves of an intoxicating joy. There is
only one word to express what I felt, and that is: rapture. Such love
as Felipe's surely makes him worthy of mine. I am the very breath of
his life, my hands hold the thread that guides his thoughts. To be quite
frank, I have a mad longing to see him clear every obstacle and stand
before me, asking boldly for my hand. Then I should know whether this
storm of love would sink to placid calm at a glance from me.

Ah! my dear, I stopped here, and I am still all in a tremble. As I
wrote, I heard a slight noise outside, and rose to see what it was. From
my window I could see him coming along the ridge of the wall at the risk
of his life. I went to the bedroom window and made him a sign, it was
enough; he leaped from the wall--ten feet--and then ran along the road,
as far as I could see him, in order to show me that he was not hurt.
That he should think of my fear at the moment when he must have been
stunned by his fall, moved me so much that I am still crying; I don't
know why. Poor ungainly man! what was he coming for? what had he to say
to me?

I dare not write my thoughts, and shall go to bed joyful, thinking of
all that we would say if we were together. Farewell, fair silent one. I
have not time to scold you for not writing, but it is more than a month
since I have heard from you! Does this mean that you are at last happy?
Have you lost the "complete independence" which you were so proud of,
and which to-night has so nearly played me false?

XX. RENEE DE L'ESTORADE TO LOUISE DE CHAULIEU May.

If love be the life of the world, why do austere philosophers count it
for nothing in marriage? Why should Society take for its first law that
the woman must be sacrificed to the family, introducing thus a note of
discord into the very heart of marriage? And this discord was foreseen,
since it was to meet the dangers arising from it that men were armed
with new-found powers against us. But for these, we should have been
able to