“In all that happens to me I will ask myself,” I said, “’What would my Henriette say?’”

“Yes, I will be the star and the sanctuary both,” she said, alluding to the dreams of my childhood.

“You are my light and my religion,” I cried; “you shall be my all.”

“No,” she answered; “I can never be the source of your pleasures.”

She sighed; the smile of secret pain was on her lips, the smile of the slave who momentarily revolts.  From that day forth she was to me, not merely my beloved, but my only love; she was not in my heart as a woman who takes a place, who makes it hers by devotion or by excess of pleasure given; but she was my heart itself,—­it was all hers, a something necessary to the play of my muscles.  She became to me as Beatrice to the Florentine, as the spotless Laura to the Venetian, the mother of great thoughts, the secret cause of resolutions which saved me, the support of my future, the light shining in the darkness like a lily in a wood.  Yes, she inspired those high resolves which pass through flames, which save the thing in peril; she gave me a constancy like Coligny’s to vanquish conquerors, to rise above defeat, to weary the strongest wrestler.

The next day, having breakfasted at Frapesle and bade adieu to my kind hosts, I went to Clochegourde.  Monsieur and Madame de Mortsauf had arranged to drive with me to Tours, whence I was to start the same night for Paris.  During the drive the countess was silent; she pretended at first to have a headache; then she blushed at the falsehood, and expiated it by saying that she could not see me go without regret.  The count invited me to stay with them whenever, in the absence of the Chessels, I might long to see the valley of the Indre once more.  We parted heroically, without apparent tears, but Jacques, who like other delicate children was quickly touched, began to cry, while Madeleine, already a woman, pressed her mother’s hand.

“Dear little one!” said the countess, kissing Jacques passionately.

When I was alone at Tours after dinner a wild, inexplicable desire known only to young blood possessed me.  I hired a horse and rode from Tours to Pont-de-Ruan in an hour and a quarter.  There, ashamed of my folly, I dismounted, and went on foot along the road, stepping cautiously like a spy till I reached the terrace.  The countess was not there, and I imagined her ill; I had kept the key of the little gate, by which I now entered; she was coming down the steps of the portico with the two children to breathe in sadly and slowly the tender melancholy of the landscape, bathed at that moment in the setting sun.

“Mother, here is Felix,” said Madeleine.

“Yes,” I whispered; “it is I. I asked myself why I should stay at Tours while I still could see you; why not indulge a desire that in a few days more I could not gratify.”

“He won’t leave us again, mother,” cried Jacques, jumping round me.