“Is it not a collection of your thoughts?” I asked, stretching out my hand and taking the book down.  “If I may, allow me to look at it.”

I opened the book, although Brigitte made a gesture as if to prevent me; on the first page I read these words: 

“This is my last will and testament.”

Everything was written in a firm hand; I found first a faithful recital of all that Brigitte had suffered on my account since she had been my mistress.  She announced her firm determination to endure everything, so long as I loved her, and to die when I left her.  Her daily life was recorded there; what she had lost, what she had hoped, the isolation she experienced even in my presence, the barrier that was growing up between us; the cruelties I subjected her to in return for her love and her resignation.  All this was written down without a complaint; on the contrary she undertook to justify me.  Then followed personal details, the disposition of her effects.  She would end her life by poison, she wrote.  She would die by her own hand and expressly forbade that her death should be charged to me.  “Pray for him!” were her last words.

I found in the closet on the same shelf a little box that I remembered I had seen before, filled with a fine bluish powder resembling salt.

“What is this?” I asked of Brigitte, raising the box to my lips.  She gave vent to a scream of terror and threw herself upon me.

“Brigitte,” I said, “bid me farewell.  I shall carry this box away with me; you will forget me, and you will live if you wish to save me from becoming a murderer.  I shall set out this very night; you will agree with me that God demands it.  Give me a last kiss.”

I bent over her and kissed her forehead.

“Not yet!” she cried, in anguish.  But I repulsed her and left the room.

Three hours later I was ready to set out, and the horses were at the door.  It was still raining when I entered the carriage.  At the moment the carriage was starting, I felt two arms about my body and a sob which spent itself on my lips.

It was Brigitte.  I did all I could to persuade her to remain; I ordered the driver to stop; I even told her that I would return to her when time should have effaced the memory of the wrongs I had done her.  I forced myself to prove to her that yesterday was the same as to-day, to-day as yesterday; I repeated that I could only render her unhappy, that to attach herself to me was but to make an assassin of me.  I resorted to prayers, to vows, to threats even; her only reply was:  “You are going away; take me, let us take leave of the country, let us take leave of the past.  We can not live here; let us go elsewhere, wherever you please; let us go and die together in some remote corner of the world.  We must be happy, I by you, you by me.”

I kissed her with such passion that I feared my heart would burst.

“Drive on!” I cried to the coachman.  We threw ourselves into each other’s arms, and the horses set out at a gallop.