Nevertheless, she repeated her question in a firmer tone.

“You must permit me to see you once more,” I replied.  “I will go away, I will leave the country.  You shall be obeyed, I swear it, and that beyond your real desire, for I will sell my father’s house and go abroad; but that is only on condition that I am permitted to see you once more; otherwise I remain; you need fear nothing from me, but I am resolved on that.”

She frowned and cast her eyes about her in a strange manner; then she replied, almost graciously: 

“Come to-morrow during the day and I will see you.”  Then she left me.

The next day at noon I presented myself.  I was introduced into a room with old hangings and antique furniture.  I found her alone, seated on a sofa.  I sat down before her.

“Madame,” I began, “I come neither to speak of what I suffer, nor to deny that I love you.  You have written me that what has passed between us can not be forgotten, and that is true; but you say that on that account we can not meet on the same footing as heretofore, and you are mistaken.  I love you, but I have not offended you; nothing is changed in our relations since you do not love me.  If I am permitted to see you, responsibility rests with me, and as far as your responsibility is concerned, my love for you should be sufficient guarantee.”

She tried to interrupt me.

“Kindly allow me to finish what I have to say.  No one knows better than I that in spite of the respect I feel for you, and in spite of all the protestations by which I might bind myself, love is the stronger.  I repeat I do not intend to deny what is in my heart; but you do not learn of that love to-day for the first time, and I ask you what has prevented me from declaring it up to the present time?  The fear of losing you; I was afraid I would not be permitted to see you, and that is what has happened.  Make a condition that the first word I shall speak, the first thought or gesture that shall seem to be inconsistent with the most profound respect, shall be the signal for the closing of your door; as I have been silent in the past, I will be silent in the future, You think that I have loved you for a month, when in fact I have loved you from the first day I met you.  When you discovered it, you did not refuse to see me on that account.  If you had at that time enough esteem for me to believe me incapable of offending you, why have you lost that esteem?

“That is what I have come to ask you.  What have I done?  I have bent my knee, but I have not said a word.  What have I told you?  What you already knew.  I have been weak because I have suffered.  It is true, Madame, that I am twenty years of age and what I have seen of life has only disgusted me (I could use a stronger word); it is true that there is not at this hour on earth, either in the society of men or in solitude, a place, however small and insignificant, that I care to occupy.