“Why so little sincerity?  If I am not your confidant, may I not at least be your friend?  If I am denied all knowledge of the source of your tears, may I not at least see them flow?  Have you not enough confidence in me to believe that I will respect your sorrow?  What have I done that I should be ignorant of it?  Might not the remedy lie right there?”

“No,” she replied, “you are wrong; you will achieve your own unhappiness as well as mine if you press me farther.  Is it not enough that we are going away?”

“And do you expect me to drag you away against your will?  Is it not evident that you have consented reluctantly, and that you already begin to repent?  Great God!  What is it you are concealing from me?  What is the use of playing with words when your thoughts are as clear as that glass before which you stand?  Should I not be the meanest of men to accept at your hands what is yielded with so much regret?  And yet how can I refuse it?  What can I do if you refuse to speak?”

“No, I do not oppose you, you are mistaken; I love you, Octave; cease tormenting me thus.”

She threw so much tenderness into these words that I fell down on my knees before her.  Who could resist her glance and her voice?

“My God!” I cried, “you love me, Brigitte?  My dear mistress, you love me?”

“Yes, I love you; yes.  I belong to you; do with me what you will.  I will follow you, let us go away together; come, Octave, the carriage is waiting.”

She pressed my hand in hers, and kissed my forehead.

“Yes, it must be,” she murmured, “it must be.”

“It must be,” I repeated to myself.  I arose.

On the table there remained only one piece of paper that Brigitte was examining.  She picked it up, then allowed it to drop to the floor.

“Is that all?” I asked.

“Yes, that is all.”

When I ordered the horses I had no idea that we would really go, I wished merely to make a trial, but circumstances bid fair to force me to carry my plans farther than I at first intended.  I opened the door.

“It must be!” I said to myself.  “It must be!” I repeated aloud.

“What do you mean by that, Brigitte?  What is there in those words that I do not understand?  Explain yourself, or I will not go.  Why must you love me?”

She fell on the sofa and wrung her hands in grief.

“Ah!  Unhappy man!” she cried, “you will never know how to love!”

“Yes, I think you are right, but, before God, I know how to suffer.  You must love me, must you not?  Very well, then you must answer me.  Were I to lose you forever, were these walls to crumble over my head, I will not leave this spot until I have solved the mystery that has been torturing me for more than a month.  Speak, or I will leave you.  I may be a fool who destroys his own happiness; I may be demanding something that is not for me to possess; it may be that an explanation will separate us and raise before me an insurmountable barrier, which will render our tour, on which I have set my heart, impossible; whatever it may cost you and me, you shall speak or I will renounce everything.”