nmost being, I exclaimed inwardly:
"Protect me, Lord, but this time with all your might. A drop of water,
Lord; a drop of water!" I waited--no appreciable succor reached from
above. It was not till a week afterward that I understood the intentions
of Providence.

"You told me you were sleepy," I murmured, in a trembling voice. I was
like a shipwrecked person clutching at a floating match-box; I knew
quite well that the Captain would not go away.

"Yes, I was sleepy, pet," said Georges, approaching his face to mine;
"but now I am athirst." He put his lips to my ear and whispered softly,
"Athirst for a kiss from you, love."

This "love" was the beginning of another life. The spouse now appeared,
the past was fleeing away, I was entering on the future. At length I had
crossed the frontier; I was in a foreign land. Oh! I acknowledge--for
what is the use of feigning?--that I craved for this love, and I felt
that it engrossed me and spread itself through me. I felt that I was
getting out of my depth, I let go the last branch that held me to the
shore, and to myself I repeated: "Yes, I love you; yes, I am willing to
follow you; yes, I am yours, love, love, love!"

"Won't you kiss your husband; come, won't you?"

And his mouth was so near my own that it seemed to meet my lips.

"Yes," said I.

.............................

August 7th, 185-How many times have I not read through you during the
last two years, my little blue note-book! How many things I might add as
marginal notes if you were not doomed to the flames, to light my first
fire this autumn! How could I have written all this, and how is it that
having done so I have not dared to complete my confidences! No one has
seen you, at any rate; no one has turned your pages. Go back into your
drawer, dear, with, pending the first autumn fire, a kiss from your
Valentine.

NOTE.--Owing to what circumstances this blue note-book, doomed to the
flames, was discovered by me in an old Louis XVI chiffonnier I had just
bought does not greatly matter to you, dear reader, and would be out of
my power to explain even if it did.

CHAPTER XIV. THE BLUE NOTE-BOOK AGAIN

Only to think that I was going to throw you into the fire, poor dear!
Was I not foolish? In whom else could I confide? If I had not you, to
whom could I tell all those little things at which every one laughs, but
which make you cry!

This evening, for instance, I dined alone, for Georges was invite