“Ah!” she exclaimed, in a hoarse and energetic accent, “how can you ask me that?  It is too hard! you humiliate me too much!”

She left my arm and returned abruptly into the parlor.  I remained for some time uncertain as to what course to pursue.  I thought first of following Madame de Palme and explaining to her that she was mistaken—­which was true—­as to the interrogative answer which had offended her.  She had applied that answer to some thought that pervaded her mind, which I did not understand, or at least which her words had revealed to me much less clearly than she had imagined; but after thinking over it, I shrank from the new and formidable explanation which such a course must inevitably bring about.

I left the conservatory, and walked into the garden to escape the hum of the ball-room, which importuned my ears.  The night was cold but beautiful.  With my heart still filled with the bitterness of this scene, I wandered instinctively beyond the luminous zone projected around the chateau through the apertures of the resplendent windows.  I walked rapidly toward a double row of spruce trees, crossed by a rustic bridge thrown over a small brook which divided the garden from the park, and where the shade was more dense.  I had just reached this somber spot, when a hand was laid on my arm and stopped me; at the same time a short and troubled voice, which I could not mistake, said: 

“I must speak to you!”

“Madam! for mercy’s sake! in the name of Heaven! what are you doing? you will ruin your reputation!  Do return to the house!  Come, come, let me escort you back!”

I attempted to seize her arm, but she eluded my grasp.

“I want to speak to you—­I have decided to do so.  Oh, mon Dieu! how awkwardly I do go about it, don’t I?  You must believe me more than ever a miserable creature! and yet there is nothing in it, not a thing; it’s the truth, the pure truth, mon ami!  You are the first man for whose sake I have forgotten—­all that I am now forgetting!  Yes, the first!  Never has any other man heard from my lips a single word of tenderness, never!  And you do not believe!”

I took both her hands in mine: 

“I believe you, I swear it—­I swear that I esteem you—­that I respect you as a beloved daughter—­but listen to me; pray, listen! do not brave openly this pitiless world—­return to the ball-room—­I’ll join you there soon, I promise you—­but in the name of Heaven, do not compromise your fair fame!”

The poor child melted into tears, and I felt that she was staggering; I supported her and helped her to a seat on a bench close by.  I remained standing before her, holding one of her hands.  The darkness was intense around us; I gazed into space, and I listened, in a state of vague stupor, to the clear and regular murmur of the brook flowing under the spruce trees, to the convulsive sobs that swelled the unhappy woman’s bosom, and to the odious sounds of revelry which the orchestra sent us at intervals from afar.  It was one of those moments that can never be forgotten.