"I immediately realized that it was not one of those sudden, short-lived passions which I had often experienced during my frivolous officer-life. Until now I had never, even in the warmest love-affair, been able to think of a union for life without feeling a quiet aversion to the loss of my freedom. In the first hour I knew that this love concerned my soul's welfare; that I could never again be my own master, even though I should be obliged to remain away from her forever. I could not long endure the uncertainty as to her feeling for me. I was somewhat spoiled by previous successes. Yet it scarcely distressed or surprised me, when, though she acknowledged that my presence was pleasant to her and that she would be glad to see me often, she said she did not return my passionate feeling, and thought too highly of a union for life and death to enter into it half-heartedly, as into something of little moment. "She became still dearer to me through this refusal, although from any one else such treatment would have sorely wounded my vanity. Before her all mean and petty feelings disappeared, and a man's best nature was aroused, as alone worthy of her. "It never occurred to me to withdraw myself, grumbling and pining, in order to make myself missed. After the first pain was over, I seemed to myself rashly presumptuous in having proposed at all. I believed that I could not better atone for this ridiculous hastiness than by remaining unassumingly near her. Her parents kept open house; and, being always welcome, I exerted myself to be cheerful, and to suppress every feeling of jealousy toward my companions in misery. But my nights were wretched, and I often brooded over the darkest resolves. "Now imagine my feeling when one morning I received a note from her; I might call upon her during the day. She had something important to say to me. "I found her alone. She met me in the greatest agitation, stretched both hands to me, and cried, 'You live! God be thanked!' Then she told me that toward morning she had had a frightful dream, in which she had seen me lying dead before her with a deep wound in my forehead. An unspeakable grief had suddenly seized her, almost as though a hot, buried spring had burst forth from her inmost soul and gushed from her eyes in an inexhaustible stream of tears. In that instant she knew that she loved me, and must die if I did not revive. When she awoke from the dream and reflected upon it, her happiness at finding it untrue was nearly fatal to her; her heart beat as violently as if it would leap from her, and she was scarcely able to write the note to me. "From that morning until her death, that warm spring of love was never exhausted. Whenever I remember--no, I dare not. I would seem to you a strange visionary, or, at best, weary you with confessions that could give you nothing new. I am no poet; and even Dante, with all his display of color and sound, could not save Paradise from monotony.