called la Rocheperfide. At last we
went to see the famous bush were Beatrix was caught when he flung
her into the sea that she might never belong to another man.

"She must be light indeed to have stayed there," I said laughing.
Calyste kept silence, so I added, "We'll respect the dead."

Still Calyste was silent.

"Have I displeased you?" I asked.

"No; but cease to galvanize that passion," he answered.

What a speech! Calyste, when he saw me all cast down by it,
redoubled his care and tenderness.

August.

I was, alas! at the edge of a precipice, amusing myself, like the
innocent heroines of all melodramas, by gathering flowers.
Suddenly a horrible thought rode full tilt through my happiness,
like the horse in the German ballad. I thought I saw that
Calyste's love was increasing through his reminiscences; that he
was expending on _me_ the stormy emotions I revived by reminding
him of the coquetries of that hateful Beatrix,--just think of it!
that cold, unhealthy nature, so persistent yet so flabby,
something between a mollusk and a bit of coral, dares to call
itself Beatrix, _Beatrice!_

Already, dearest mother, I am forced to keep one eye open to
suspicion, when my heart is all Calyste's; and isn't it a great
catastrophe when the eye gets the better of the heart, and
suspicion at last finds itself justified? It came to pass in this
way:--

"This place is dear to me," I said to Calyste one morning,
"because I owe my happiness to it; and so I forgive you for taking
me sometimes for another woman."

The loyal Breton blushed, and I threw my arms around his neck. But
all the same I have left Les Touches, and never will I go back
there again.

The very strength of hatred which makes me long for Madame de
Rochefide's death--ah, heavens! a natural death, pleurisy, or some
accident--makes me also understand to its fullest extent the power
of my love for Calyste. That woman has appeared to me to trouble
my sleep,--I see her in a dream; shall I ever encounter her
bodily? Ah! the postulant of the Visitation was right,--Les
Touches is a fatal spot; Calyste has there recovered his past
emotions, and they are, I see it plainly, more powerful than the
joys of our love. Ascertain, my dear mamma, if Madame de Rochefide
is in Paris, for if she is, I shall stay in Brittany. Poor
Mademoiselle des Touches might well repent of her share in ou