"I thought so much of ourselves while I was sitting. If you knew how much this likeness, loves you!" And Hubert felt himself really loved by it. It seemed to him that from the oval face, the slender lips, and the dream-bathed eyes, there proceeded a tender effluence which encompassed him, and it was there that, by the side of the vision of perfidy, there began to rise afresh the vision of Theresa's love. He knew as clearly from the memories of this woman that she had loved, and still loved him, as he knew from her own confession that she had betrayed him. He saw her again as he had left her on the sofa in their retreat, with her face convulsed, and, above all, her tears--ah, what tears! For the first time since the fatal hour he perceived the nobility with which she had acknowledged her fault, when it was so easy for her to speak falsely, and he suddenly uttered a cry which hitherto had not come to him through his days of parched and passionate pain: "But why? why?" Yes, why? why? This anguish of a completely moral order henceforward accompanied the anguish of physical sight. Hubert began to think, not only about his trouble, but about the cause of his trouble. To burn these letters, to tear this likeness, to break and throw away the chain and ring, to destroy this last remnant of his love, would have been as impossible to him as to rend with steel his mistress's quivering body. These objects were living persons with looks, caresses, pantings, voices. He closed the drawer, unable any longer to endure the presence of these things which to him seemed made of the very substance of his heart. He threw himself upon the couch and lost himself in the gulf of his reflection. Yes, Theresa had loved him, and Theresa loved him still. There are tears, embraces, and a warmth of soul which do not lie. She loved him and she had betrayed him! With his own name in her heart she had given herself to another, less than six weeks after leaving him! But why? why? Driven by what force? Led away by what dizziness? Overwhelmed by what intoxication? What was the nature--not of women of that sort now, for he had no longer any such fierceness of thought--but of woman, that so monstrous an action should be barely possible to her? Of what flesh was she formed, this deceiving creature, that with all the appearances and all the realities of love, it was not possible to place more reliance upon her than upon water.