away. Once left to ourselves, I refused to speak, but was
able to reach my room, where I shut myself in, to weep my fill. Gaston
remained something like two hours at my door, listening to my sobs
and questioning with angelic patience his poor darling, who made no
response.

At last I told him that I would see him when my eyes were less red and
my voice was steady again.

My formal words drove him from the house. But by the time I had bathed
my eyes in iced water and cooled my face, I found him in our room, the
door into which was open, though I had heard no steps. He begged me to
tell him what was wrong.

"Nothing," I said; "I saw the mud of Paris on Fedelta's trembling legs;
it seemed strange that you should go there without telling me; but, of
course, you are free."

"I shall punish you for such wicked thoughts by not giving any
explanation till to-morrow," he replied.

"Look at me," I said.

My eyes met his; deep answered to deep. No, not a trace of the cloud of
disloyalty which, rising from the soul, must dim the clearness of the
eye. I feigned satisfaction, though really unconvinced. It is not women
only who can lie and dissemble!

The whole of the day we spent together. Ever and again, as I looked
at him, I realized how fast my heart-strings were bound to him. How
I trembled and fluttered within when, after a moment's absence, he
reappeared. I live in him, not in myself. My cruel sufferings gave the
lie to your unkind letter. Did I ever feel my life thus bound up in the
noble Spaniard, who adored me, as I adore this heartless boy? I hate
that mare! Fool that I was to keep horses! But the next thing would have
been to lame Gaston or imprison him in the cottage. Wild thoughts like
these filled my brain; you see how near I was to madness! If love be
not the cage, what power on earth can hold back the man who wants to be
free?

I asked him point-blank, "Do I bore you?"

"What needless torture you give yourself!" was his reply, while he
looked at me with tender, pitying eyes. "Never have I loved you so
deeply."

"If that is true, my beloved, let me sell Fedelta," I answered.

"Sell her, by all means!"

The reply crushed me. Was it not a covert taunt at my wealth and his
own nothingness in the house? This may never have occurred to him, but
I thought it had, and once more I left him. It was night, and I would go
to bed.

Oh! Renee, to be alone with a harrowing thought drives one to thoughts
of death.