if you had felt, as I felt then, her burning tears
falling on your hands, you would know what gratitude is, when it follows
so closely upon the benefit. Her eyes shone with a feverish glitter,
a faint ray of happiness gleamed out of her terrible suffering, as she
grasped my hands in hers, and said, in a choking voice:

"Ah! you love! May you be happy always. May you never lose her whom you
love."

She broke off, and fled away with her treasure.

Next morning, this night-scene among my dreams seemed like a dream; to
make sure of the piteous truth, I was obliged to look fruitlessly under
my pillow for the packet of letters. There is no need to tell you how
the next day went. I spent several hours of it with the Juliette whom my
poor comrade had so praised to me. In her lightest words, her gestures,
in all that she did and said, I saw proofs of the nobleness of soul, the
delicacy of feeling which made her what she was, one of those beloved,
loving, and self-sacrificing natures so rarely found upon this earth.

In the evening the Comte de Montpersan came himself as far as Moulins
with me. There he spoke with a kind of embarrassment:

"Monsieur, if it is not abusing your good-nature, and acting very
inconsiderately towards a stranger to whom we are already under
obligations, would you have the goodness, as you are going to Paris, to
remit a sum of money to M. de ---- (I forget the name), in the Rue du
Sentier; I owe him an amount, and he asked me to send it as soon as
possible."

"Willingly," said I. And in the innocence of my heart, I took charge
of a rouleau of twenty-five louis d'or, which paid the expenses of
my journey back to Paris; and only when, on my arrival, I went to
the address indicated to repay the amount to M. de Montpersan's
correspondent, did I understand the ingenious delicacy with which
Juliette had obliged me. Was not all the genius of a loving woman
revealed in such a way of lending, in her reticence with regard to a
poverty easily guessed?

And what rapture to have this adventure to tell to a woman who clung to
you more closely in dread, saying, "Oh, my dear, not you! _You_ must not
die!"

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