the Marquise and to marry.

"One must live a man's life," said he to himself.

Then followed some inkling of the pain that this decision would give to
Mme. de Beauseant. The man's vanity and the lover's conscience further
exaggerated this pain, and a sincere pity for her seized upon him.
All at once the immensity of the misery became apparent to him, and he
thought it necessary and charitable to deaden the deadly blow. He
hoped to bring Mme. de Beauseant to a calm frame of mind by gradually
reconciling her to the idea of separation; while Mlle. de la Rodiere,
always like a shadowy third between them, should be sacrificed to her at
first, only to be imposed upon her later. His marriage should take place
later, in obedience to Mme. de Beauseant's expressed wish. He went so
far as to enlist the Marquise's nobleness and pride and all the great
qualities of her nature to help him to succeed in this compassionate
design. He would write a letter at once to allay her suspicions. _A
letter!_ For a woman with the most exquisite feminine perception, as
well as the intuition of passionate love, a letter in itself was a
sentence of death.

So when Jacques came and brought Mme. de Beauseant a sheet of paper
folded in a triangle, she trembled, poor woman, like a snared swallow. A
mysterious sensation of physical cold spread from head to foot, wrapping
her about in an icy winding sheet. If he did not rush to her feet, if he
did not come to her in tears, and pale, and like a lover, she knew that
all was lost. And yet, so many hopes are there in the heart of a woman
who loves, that she is only slain by stab after stab, and loves on till
the last drop of life-blood drains away.

"Does madame need anything?" Jacques asked gently, as he went away.

"No," she said.

"Poor fellow!" she thought, brushing a tear from her eyes, "he guesses
my feelings, servant though he is!"

She read: "My beloved, you are inventing idle terrors for yourself..."
The Marquise gazed at the words, and a thick mist spread before her
eyes. A voice in her heart cried, "He lies!"--Then she glanced down the
page with the clairvoyant eagerness of passion, and read these words at
the foot, "_Nothing has been decided as yet..._" Turning to the
other side with convulsive quickness, she saw the mind of the writer
distinctly through the intricacies of the wording; this was no
spontaneous outburst of love. She crushed it in her fingers, twisted it,
tore it with her tee