“O God! dost thou remember a day when a wreath of roses was placed on my head?  Was it this brow on which that crown rested?  Ah! the hand that hung it on the wall of the oratory has now fallen, like it, to dust!  Oh, my native valley!  Oh, my old aunt, who now sleeps in peace!  Oh, my lindens, my little white goat, my dear peasants who loved me so much!  You remember when I was happy, proud, and respected?  Who threw in my path that stranger who took me away from all this?  Who gave him the right to enter my life?  Ah! wretch! why didst thou turn the first day he followed you?  Why didst thou receive him as a brother?  Why didst thou open thy door, and why didst thou hold out thy hand?  Octave, Octave, why have you loved me if all is to end thus?”

She was about to faint as I led her to a chair where she sank down and her head fell on my shoulder.  The terrible effort she had made in speaking to me so bitterly had broken her down.  Instead of an outraged woman I found now only a suffering child.  Her eyes closed and she was motionless.

When she regained consciousness she complained of extreme languor, and begged to be left alone that she might rest.  She could hardly walk; I carried her gently to her room and placed her on the bed.  There was no mark of suffering on her face:  she was resting from her sorrow as from great fatigue, and seemed not even to remember it.  Her feeble and delicate body yielded without a struggle; the strain had been too great.  She held my hand in hers; I kissed her; our lips met in loving union, and after the cruel scene through which she had passed, she slept smilingly on my heart as on the first day.

CHAPTER VI

SELF-SACRIFICE THE SOLUTION

Brigitte slept.  Silent, motionless, I sat near her.  As a husbandman, when the storm has passed, counts the sheaves that remain in his devastated field, thus I began to estimate the evil I had done.

The more I thought of it, the more irreparable I felt it to be.  Certain sorrows, by their very excess, warn us of their limits, and the more shame and remorse I experienced, the more I felt that after such a scene, nothing remained for us to do but to say adieu.  Whatever courage Brigitte had shown, she had drunk to the dregs the bitter cup of her sad love; unless I wished to see her die, I must give her repose.  She had often addressed cruel reproaches to me, and had, perhaps, on certain other occasions shown more anger than in this scene; but what she had said this time was not dictated by offended pride; it was the truth, which, hidden closely in her heart, had broken it in escaping.

Our present relations, and the fact that I had refused to go away with her, destroyed all hope; she desired to pardon me, but she had not the power.  This slumber even, this deathlike sleep of one who could suffer no more, was conclusive evidence; this sudden silence, the tenderness she had shown in the final moments, that pale face, and that kiss, confirmed me in the belief that all was over, and that I had broken forever whatever bond had united us.  As surely as she slept now, as soon as I gave her cause for further suffering she would sleep in eternal rest.  The clock struck and I felt that the last hour had carried away my life with hers.