e to
this paper as an endorsement of your claim to my income. If the
revenues of the entail do not pay this loan as quickly as I now
expect, you and I will settle on my return. The sum I ask for is
absolutely necessary to enable me to seek my fortune in India; and
if I know you, I shall receive it in Bordeaux the night before I
sail.

I have acted as you would have acted in my place. I held firm to
the last moment, letting no one suspect my ruin. Before the news
of the seizure of my property at Bordeaux reached Paris, I had
attempted, with one hundred thousand francs which I obtained on
notes, to recover myself by play. Some lucky stroke might still
have saved me. I lost.

How have I ruined myself? By my own will, Henri. From the first
month of my married life I saw that I could not keep up the style
in which I started. I knew the result; but I chose to shut my
eyes; I could not say to my wife, "We must leave Paris and live at
Lanstrac." I have ruined myself for her as men ruin themselves for
a mistress, but I knew it all along. Between ourselves, I am
neither a fool nor a weak man. A fool does not let himself be
ruled with his eyes open by a passion; and a man who starts for
India to reconstruct his fortune, instead of blowing out his
brains, is not weak.

I shall return rich, or I shall never return at all. Only, my dear
friend, as I want wealth solely for _her_, as I must be absent six
years at least, and as I will not risk being duped in any way, I
confide to you my wife. I know no better guardian. Being
childless, a lover might be dangerous to her. Henri! I love her
madly, basely, without proper pride. I would forgive her, I think,
an infidelity, not because I am certain of avenging it, but
because I would kill myself to leave her free and happy--since I
could not make her happiness myself. But what have I to fear?
Natalie feels for me that friendship which is independent of love,
but which preserves love. I have treated her like a petted child.
I took such delight in my sacrifices, one led so naturally to
another, that she can never be false; she would be a monster if
she were. Love begets love.

Alas! shall I tell you all, my dear Henri? I have just written her
a letter in which I let her think that I go with heart of hope and
brow serene; that neither jealousy, nor doubt, nor fear is in my
soul,--a letter, in short, such as a