Shall I tell you whom I pity?—­the fourth woman whom you love.  She will be forced to struggle against three others.  Therefore, in your interests as well as in hers, I must warn you against the dangers of your tale.  For myself, I renounce the laborious glory of loving you,—­it needs too many virtues, Catholic or Anglican, and I have no fancy for rivalling phantoms.  The virtues of the virgin of Clochegourde would dishearten any woman, however sure of herself she might be, and your intrepid English amazon discourages even a wish for that sort of happiness.  No matter what a poor woman may do, she can never hope to give you the joys she will aspire to give.  Neither heart nor senses can triumph against these memories of yours.  I own that I have never been able to warm the sunshine chilled for you by the death of your sainted Henriette.  I have felt you shuddering beside me.

My friend,—­for you will always be my friend,—­never make such confidences again; they lay bare your disillusions; they discourage love, and compel a woman to feel doubtful of herself.  Love, dear count, can only live on trustfulness.  The woman who before she says a word or mounts her horse, must ask herself whether a celestial Henriette might not have spoken better, whether a rider like Arabella was not more graceful, that woman you may be very sure, will tremble in all her members.  You certainly have given me a desire to receive a few of those intoxicating bouquets—­but you say you will make no more.  There are many other things you dare no longer do; thoughts and enjoyments you can never reawaken.  No woman, and you ought to know this, will be willing to elbow in your heart the phantom whom you hold there.

You ask me to love you out of Christian charity.  I could do much, I candidly admit, for charity; in fact I could do all—­except love.  You are sometimes wearisome and wearied; you call your dulness melancholy.  Very good,—­so be it; but all the same it is intolerable, and causes much cruel anxiety to one who loves you.  I have often found the grave of that saint between us.  I have searched my own heart, I know myself, and I own I do not wish to die as she did.  If you tired out Lady Dudley, who is a very distinguished woman, I, who have not her passionate desires, should, I fear, turn coldly against you even sooner than she did.  Come, let us suppress love between us, inasmuch as you can find happiness only with the dead, and let us be merely friends—­I wish it.

Ah! my dear count, what a history you have told me!  At your entrance into life you found an adorable woman, a perfect mistress, who thought of your future, made you a peer, loved you to distraction, only asked that you would be faithful to her, and you killed her!  I know nothing more monstrous.  Among all the passionate and unfortunate young men who haunt the streets of Paris,