take another lover. If so, why did she
not choose Gaston, who was rich, witty, and charming, and why did she
care for me, whom she had thought so ridiculous the first time she had
seen me?

It is true that there are events of a moment which tell more than the
courtship of a year. Of those who were at the supper, I was the only one
who had been concerned at her leaving the table. I had followed her, I
had been so affected as to be unable to hide it from her, I had wept as
I kissed her hand. This circumstance, added to my daily visits during
the two months of her illness, might have shown her that I was somewhat
different from the other men she knew, and perhaps she had said to
herself that for a love which could thus manifest itself she might well
do what she had done so often that it had no more consequence for her.

All these suppositions, as you may see, were improbable enough; but
whatever might have been the reason of her consent, one thing was
certain, she had consented.

Now, I was in love with Marguerite. I had nothing more to ask of her.
Nevertheless, though she was only a kept woman, I had so anticipated for
myself, perhaps to poetize it a little, a hopeless love, that the nearer
the moment approached when I should have nothing more to hope, the more
I doubted. I did not close my eyes all night.

I scarcely knew myself. I was half demented. Now, I seemed to myself not
handsome or rich or elegant enough to possess such a woman, now I was
filled with vanity at the thought of it; then I began to fear lest
Marguerite had no more than a few days' caprice for me, and I said to
myself that since we should soon have to part, it would be better not to
keep her appointment, but to write and tell her my fears and leave her.
From that I went on to unlimited hope, unbounded confidence. I dreamed
incredible dreams of the future; I said to myself that she should owe
to me her moral and physical recovery, that I should spend my whole life
with her, and that her love should make me happier than all the maidenly
loves in the world.

But I can not repeat to you the thousand thoughts that rose from my
heart to my head, and that only faded away with the sleep that came to
me at daybreak.

When I awoke it was two o'clock. The weather was superb. I don't think
life ever seemed to me so beautiful and so full of possibilities. The
memories of the night before came to me without shadow or hindrance,
escorted gaily by the hopes o