we were both silent. How say to her that she
was not destined for me, nor I for her; that we must part forever?

But, though my lips refused to tell her this in words, I told it to her
with my eyes; my severe glance confirmed her fears; it convinced her of
the irrevocableness of my decision.

All at once her gaze was troubled; her lovely countenance, pale with a
translucent pallor, was contracted with a touching expression of
melancholy. She looked like Our Lady of Sorrows. Two tears rose slowly
to her eyes, and began to steal down her cheeks.

I know not what passed within me--and how describe it, even if I knew?

I bent toward her to kiss away her tears, and our lips met in a kiss.

A rapture unspeakable, a faintness full of peril, invaded our whole
being. She would have fallen, but that I supported her in my arms.

Heaven willed that we should at this moment hear the step and the cough
of the reverend vicar, who was approaching, and we instantly drew apart.

Recovering myself, and summoning all the strength of my will, I brought
to an end this terrible scene, that had been enacted in silence, with
these words, which I pronounced in low and intense accents:

"The first and the last!"

I made allusion to our profane kiss, but, as if my words had been an
invocation, there rose before me the vision of the Apocalypse in all its
terrible majesty. I beheld Him who is indeed the First and the Last,
and, with the two-edged sword that proceeded from his mouth, he pierced
my soul, full of evil, of wickedness, and of sin.

All that evening I passed in a species of frenzy, an inward delirium,
that I know not how I was able to conceal.

I withdrew from Pepita's house very early.

The anguish of my soul was yet more poignant in solitude.

When I recalled that kiss, and those words of farewell, I compared
myself with the traitor Judas, who made use of a kiss to betray; and
with the sanguinary and treacherous assassin Joab, who plunged the sharp
steel into the bowels of Amasa while in the act of kissing him.

I had committed a double treason; I had been guilty of a double perfidy.
I had sinned against God and against her.

I am an execrable wretch.

_June 11th._

Everything may still be remedied.

Pepita will, in time, forget her love and the weakness of which we were
guilty.

Since that night I have not returned to her house. Antonona has not made
her appearance in ours.

By dint of entreaties I have obtained