Mme. de Beauseant’s letter arrived just as Gaston’s love of her was holding out against the temptations of a settled life conformable to received ideas.  That letter decided the day.  He made up his mind to break off with the Marquise and to marry.

“One must live a man’s life,” said he to himself.

Then followed some inkling of the pain that this decision would give to Mme. de Beauseant.  The man’s vanity and the lover’s conscience further exaggerated this pain, and a sincere pity for her seized upon him.  All at once the immensity of the misery became apparent to him, and he thought it necessary and charitable to deaden the deadly blow.  He hoped to bring Mme. de Beauseant to a calm frame of mind by gradually reconciling her to the idea of separation; while Mlle. de la Rodiere, always like a shadowy third between them, should be sacrificed to her at first, only to be imposed upon her later.  His marriage should take place later, in obedience to Mme. de Beauseant’s expressed wish.  He went so far as to enlist the Marquise’s nobleness and pride and all the great qualities of her nature to help him to succeed in this compassionate design.  He would write a letter at once to allay her suspicions. A letter! For a woman with the most exquisite feminine perception, as well as the intuition of passionate love, a letter in itself was a sentence of death.

So when Jacques came and brought Mme. de Beauseant a sheet of paper folded in a triangle, she trembled, poor woman, like a snared swallow.  A mysterious sensation of physical cold spread from head to foot, wrapping her about in an icy winding sheet.  If he did not rush to her feet, if he did not come to her in tears, and pale, and like a lover, she knew that all was lost.  And yet, so many hopes are there in the heart of a woman who loves, that she is only slain by stab after stab, and loves on till the last drop of life-blood drains away.

“Does madame need anything?” Jacques asked gently, as he went away.

“No,” she said.

“Poor fellow!” she thought, brushing a tear from her eyes, “he guesses my feelings, servant though he is!”

She read:  “My beloved, you are inventing idle terrors for yourself . . .”  The Marquise gazed at the words, and a thick mist spread before her eyes.  A voice in her heart cried, “He lies!”—­Then she glanced down the page with the clairvoyant eagerness of passion, and read these words at the foot, “Nothing has been decided as yet . . .” Turning to the other side with convulsive quickness, she saw the mind of the writer distinctly through the intricacies of the wording; this was no spontaneous outburst of love.  She crushed it in her fingers, twisted it, tore it with her teeth, flung it in the fire, and cried aloud, “Ah! base that he is!  I was his, and he had ceased to love me!”

She sank half dead upon the couch.

M. de Nueil went out as soon as he had written his letter.  When he came back, Jacques met him on the threshold with a note.  “Madame la Marquise has left the chateau,” said the man.