“A terrible event had broken him down.  He had fallen madly in love with a young girl and married her in a kind of dreamlike ecstasy.  After a year of unalloyed bliss and unexhausted passion, she had died suddenly of heart disease, no doubt killed by love itself.

“He had left the country on the very day of her funeral, and had come to live in his hotel at Rouen.  He remained there, solitary and desperate, grief slowly mining him, so wretched that he constantly thought of suicide.

“‘As I thus came across you again,’ he said, ’I shall ask a great favor of you.  I want you to go to my chateau and get some papers I urgently need.  They are in the writing-desk of my room, of our room.  I cannot send a servant or a lawyer, as the errand must be kept private.  I want absolute silence.

“’I shall give you the key of the room, which I locked carefully myself before leaving, and the key to the writing-desk.  I shall also give you a note for the gardener, who will let you in.

“‘Come to breakfast with me to-morrow, and we’ll talk the matter over.’

“I promised to render him that slight service.  It would mean but a pleasant excursion for me, his home not being more than twenty-five miles from Rouen.  I could go there in an hour on horseback.

“At ten o’clock the next day I was with him.  We breakfasted alone together, yet he did not utter more than twenty words.  He asked me to excuse him.  The thought that I was going to visit the room where his happiness lay shattered, upset him, he said.  Indeed, he seemed perturbed, worried, as if some mysterious struggle were taking place in his soul.

“At last he explained exactly what I was to do.  It was very simple.  I was to take two packages of letters and some papers, locked in the first drawer at the right of the desk of which I had the key.  He added: 

“‘I need not ask you not to glance at them.’

“I was almost hurt by his words, and told him so, rather sharply.  He stammered: 

“‘Forgive me.  I suffer so much!’

“And tears came to his eyes.

“I left about one o’clock to accomplish my errand.

“The day was radiant, and I rushed through the meadows, listening to the song of the larks, and the rhythmical beat of my sword on my riding-boots.

“Then I entered the forest, and I set my horse to walking.  Branches of the trees softly caressed my face, and now and then I would catch a leaf between my teeth and bite it with avidity, full of the joy of life, such as fills you without reason, with a tumultuous happiness almost indefinable, a kind of magical strength.

“As I neared the house I took out the letter for the gardener, and noted with surprise that it was sealed.  I was so amazed and so annoyed that I almost turned back without fulfilling my mission.  Then I thought that I should thus display over-sensitiveness and bad taste.  My friend might have sealed it unconsciously, worried as he was.