one
word--Henriette! Nothing else; the rest of the paper was blank.

At the sight of that word I was for a moment annihilated.

"Io non mori, e non rimasi vivo."

Henriette! It was her style, eloquent in its brevity. I recollected her
last letter from Pontarlier, which I had received at Geneva, and which
contained only one word--Farewell!

Henriette, whom I had loved so well, whom I seemed at that moment to love
as well as ever. "Cruel Henriette," said I to myself, "you saw me and
would not let me see you. No doubt you thought your charms would not have
their old power, and feared lest I should discover that after all you
were but mortal. And yet I love you with all the ardour of my early
passion. Why did you not let me learn from your own mouth that you were
happy? That is the only question I should have asked you, cruel fair one.
I should not have enquired whether you loved me still, for I feel my
unworthiness, who have loved other women after loving the most perfect of
her sex. Adorable Henriette, I will fly to you to-morrow, since you told
me that I should be always welcome."

I turned these thoughts over in my own mind, and fortified myself in this
resolve; but at last I said,--

"No, your behaviour proves that you do not wish to see me now, and your
wishes shall be respected; but I must see you once before I die."

Marcoline scarcely dared breathe to see me thus motionless and lost in
thought, and I do not know when I should have come to myself if the
landlord had not come in saying that he remembered my tastes, and had got
me a delicious supper. This brought me to my senses, and I made my fair
Venetian happy again by embracing her in a sort of ecstacy.

"Do you know," she said, "you quite frightened me? You were as pale and
still as a dead man, and remained for a quarter of an hour in a kind of
swoon, the like of which I have never seen. What is the reason? I knew
that the countess was acquainted with you, but I should never have
thought that her name by itself could have such an astonishing effect."

"Well, it is strange; but how did you find out that the countess knew
me?"

"She told me as much twenty times over in the night, but she made me
promise to say nothing about it till I had given you the letter."

"What did she say to you about me?"

"She only repeated in different ways what she has written for an
address."

"What a letter it is! Her name, and nothing more."

"It is very strange."