After this long digression, with which the reader may not be very well pleased, it is time for me to return to my sweetheart.  The tenth day of my visit to Lausanne, I went to sup and sleep with my mistress, and that night was the happiest I remember.  In the morning, while we were taking coffee with her mother, I observed that we seemed in no hurry to part.  At this, the mother, a woman of few words, took up the discourse in a polite and dignified manner, and told me it was my duty to undeceive Lebel before I left; and at the same time she gave me a letter she had had from him the evening before.  The worthy man begged her to remind me that if I could not make up my mind to separate from her daughter before I left Lausanne, it would be much more difficult for me to do so when I was farther off; above all, if, as would probably be the case, she gave me a living pledge of her love.  He said that he had no thoughts of drawing back from his word, but he should wish to be able to say that he had taken his wife from her mother’s hands.

When I had read the letter aloud, the worthy mother wept, and left us alone.  A moment’s silence ensued, and with a sigh that shewed what it cost her, my dear Dubois had the courage to tell me that I must instantly write to Lebel to give up all pretensions to her, or to come and take her at once.

“If I write and tell him to think no more of you, I must marry you myself.”

“No.”

With this no she arose and left me.  I thought it over for a quarter of an hour, I weighed the pros and cons and still my love shrank from the sacrifice.  At last, on consideration that my housekeeper would never have such a chance again, that I was not sure that I could always make her happy, I resolved to be generous, and determined to write to Lebel that Madame Dubois had decided of her own free will to become his wife, that I had no right to oppose her resolution, and that I would go so far as to congratulate him on a happiness I envied him.  I begged him to leave Soleure at once and come and receive her in my presence from the hands of her worthy mother.

I signed the letter and took it to my housekeeper, who was in her mother’s room.  “Take this letter, dearest, and read it, and if you approve its contents put your signature beside mine.”  She read it several times, while her good mother wept, and then, with an affectionate and sorrowful air, she took the pen and signed.  I begged her mother to find somebody to take the letter to Soleure immediately, before my resolution was weakened by repentance.

The messenger came, and as soon as he had gone, “Farewell,” said I, embracing her, with my eyes wet with tears, “farewell, we shall see each other again as soon as Lebel comes.”

I went to my inn, a prey to the deepest grief.  This sacrifice had given a new impetus to my love for this charming woman, and I felt a sort of spasm, which made me afraid I should get ill.  I shut myself up in my room, and I ordered the servants to say I was unwell and could see no one.