Honorine was in a dress that made her bewitching. Her hair
framed that face that you know in its light curls; and in it were some
sprays of Cape heath; she wore a white muslin gown, a white sash with
long floating ends. You know what she is in such simplicity, but that
day she was a bride, the Honorine of long past days. My joy was chilled
at once, for her face was terribly grave; there were fires beneath the
ice.

"'"Octave," she said, "I will return as your wife when you will. But
understand clearly that this submission has its dangers. I can be
resigned----"

"'I made a movement.

"'"Yes," she went on, "I understand: resignation offends you, and you
want what I cannot give--Love. Religion and pity led me to renounce my
vow of solitude; you are here!" She paused.

"'"At first," she went on, "you asked no more. Now you demand your wife.
Well, here I give you Honorine, such as she is, without deceiving you as
to what she will be.--What shall I be? A mother? I hope it. Believe
me, I hope it eagerly. Try to change me; you have my consent; but if
I should die, my dear, do not curse my memory, and do not set down to
obstinacy what I should call the worship of the Ideal, if it were not
more natural to call the indefinable feeling which must kill me the
worship of the Divine! The future will be nothing to me; it will be your
concern; consult your own mind."

"'And she sat down in the calm attitude you used to admire, and watched
me turning pale with the pain she had inflicted. My blood ran cold. On
seeing the effect of her words she took both my hands, and, holding them
in her own, she said:

"'"Octave, I do love you, but not in the way you wish to be loved. I
love your soul.... Still, understand that I love you enough to die in
your service like an Eastern slave, and without a regret. It will be my
expiation."

"'She did more; she knelt before me on a cushion, and in a spirit of
sublime charity she said:

"'"And perhaps I shall not die!"

"'For two months now I have been struggling with myself. What shall I
do? My heart is too full; I therefore seek a friend, and send out this
cry, "What shall I do?"'

"I did not answer this letter. Two months later the newspapers announced
the return on board an English vessel of the Comtesse Octave, restored
to her family after adventures by land and sea, invented with sufficient
probability to arouse no contradiction.

"When I moved to Genoa I received a formal announcement