When he had taken possession of his poor room, he made a packet of Mme. de Bargeton’s letters, laid them on the table, and sat down to write to her; but before he wrote he fell to thinking over that fatal week.  He did not tell himself that he had been the first to be faithless; that for a sudden fancy he had been ready to leave his Louise without knowing what would become of her in Paris.  He saw none of his own shortcomings, but he saw his present position, and blamed Mme. de Bargeton for it.  She was to have lighted his way; instead she had ruined him.  He grew indignant, he grew proud, he worked himself into a paroxysm of rage, and set himself to compose the following epistle:—­

“What would you think, madame, of a woman who should take a fancy to some poor and timid child full of the noble superstitions which the grown man calls ‘illusions;’ and using all the charms of woman’s coquetry, all her most delicate ingenuity, should feign a mother’s love to lead that child astray?  Her fondest promises, the card-castles which raised his wonder, cost her nothing; she leads him on, tightens her hold upon him, sometimes coaxing, sometimes scolding him for his want of confidence, till the child leaves his home and follows her blindly to the shores of a vast sea.  Smiling, she lures him into a frail skiff, and sends him forth alone and helpless to face the storm.  Standing safe on the rock, she laughs and wishes him luck.  You are that woman; I am that child.

“The child has a keepsake in his hands, something which might betray the wrongs done by your beneficence, your kindness in deserting him.  You might have to blush if you saw him struggling for life, and chanced to recollect that once you clasped him to your breast.  When you read these words the keepsake will be in your own safe keeping; you are free to forget everything.

“Once you pointed out fair hopes to me in the skies, I awake to find reality in the squalid poverty of Paris.  While you pass, and others bow before you, on your brilliant path in the great world, I, I whom you deserted on the threshold, shall be shivering in the wretched garret to which you consigned me.  Yet some pang may perhaps trouble your mind amid festivals and pleasures; you may think sometimes of the child whom you thrust into the depths.  If so, madame, think of him without remorse.  Out of the depths of his misery the child offers you the one thing left to him—­his forgiveness in a last look.  Yes, madame, thanks to you, I have nothing left.  Nothing! was not the world created from nothing?  Genius should follow the Divine example; I begin with God-like forgiveness, but as yet I know not whether I possess the God-like power.  You need only tremble lest I should go astray; for you would be answerable for my sins.  Alas!  I pity you, for you will have no part in the future towards which I go, with work as my guide.”

After penning this rhetorical effusion, full of the