The day after the show he had said to himself—­“We mustn’t go back too soon; that would be a mistake.”

And at the end of a week he had gone off hunting.  After the hunting he had thought it was too late, and then he reasoned thus—­

“If from the first day she loved me, she must from impatience to see me again love me more.  Let’s go on with it!”

And he knew that his calculation had been right when, on entering the room, he saw Emma turn pale.

She was alone.  The day was drawing in.  The small muslin curtain along the windows deepened the twilight, and the gilding of the barometer, on which the rays of the sun fell, shone in the looking-glass between the meshes of the coral.

Rodolphe remained standing, and Emma hardly answered his first conventional phrases.

“I,” he said, “have been busy.  I have been ill.”

“Seriously?” she cried.

“Well,” said Rodolphe, sitting down at her side on a footstool, “no; it was because I did not want to come back.”

“Why?”

“Can you not guess?”

He looked at her again, but so hard that she lowered her head, blushing.  He went on—­

“Emma!”

“Sir,” she said, drawing back a little.

“Ah! you see,” replied he in a melancholy voice, “that I was right not to come back; for this name, this name that fills my whole soul, and that escaped me, you forbid me to use!  Madame Bovary! why all the world calls you thus!  Besides, it is not your name; it is the name of another!”

He repeated, “of another!” And he hid his face in his hands.

“Yes, I think of you constantly.  The memory of you drives me to despair.  Ah! forgive me!  I will leave you!  Farewell!  I will go far away, so far that you will never hear of me again; and yet—­to-day—­I know not what force impelled me towards you.  For one does not struggle against Heaven; one cannot resist the smile of angels; one is carried away by that which is beautiful, charming, adorable.”

It was the first time that Emma had heard such words spoken to herself, and her pride, like one who reposes bathed in warmth, expanded softly and fully at this glowing language.

“But if I did not come,” he continued, “if I could not see you, at least I have gazed long on all that surrounds you.  At night-every night-I arose; I came hither; I watched your house, its glimmering in the moon, the trees in the garden swaying before your window, and the little lamp, a gleam shining through the window-panes in the darkness.  Ah! you never knew that there, so near you, so far from you, was a poor wretch!”

She turned towards him with a sob.

“Oh, you are good!” she said.

“No, I love you, that is all!  You do not doubt that!  Tell me—­one word—­only one word!”

And Rodolphe imperceptibly glided from the footstool to the ground; but a sound of wooden shoes was heard in the kitchen, and he noticed the door of the room was not closed.