Night fell--a wintry night preceded by a short, dismal twilight. Worn out by the excess of emotion, René at last decided to adopt the only course that could be put into immediate execution--that of writing to Suzanne. On reaching the village of Saint-Cloud he entered a _café_, and there, on a beer-stained blotting-pad, with a spluttering pen, disgusted with the paper he used and the place he was in, disturbed by the noise of billiard balls and blinded by the smoke of the players' pipes, he wrote, under the insolent gaze of a dirty waiter, first one letter, then another, and finally a third. How horrified he would have been had Suzanne seen him sitting there! But, on the other hand, he felt that he could not wait until he got home to tell her what he had to say, and in the following terms, that would have greatly surprised Baron Desforges had he read them and been told that they were addressed to his Suzette of the Rue du Mont-Thabor, he gave vent to his excessive grief: 'I have written you several letters, madame, and torn them up, and I am not sure that I shall send you this one, so great is my fear of displeasing you by the crude expression of sentiments which I am sure would not displease you if you really knew them. Alas! we cannot bare our hearts, and will you believe me when I tell you that the feelings which prompt me to write this letter have nothing in them that would offend the most sensitive and pure-minded woman--not even yourself, madame? But you know so little of me, and the feeling which, with the divine sincerity of a soul that abhors concealment, you have permitted me to see, has been such a surprise that, by the time I am writing these lines, it has probably been already banished and effaced from your heart for ever. If that be so, do not answer this letter--do not even read it. I shall know what to make of your silence, and will bow to your decision. I shall suffer cruelly, but my gratitude to you will be eternal for having procured me the absolute and unalloyed delight of seeing the Ideal of all my youthful dreams in the flesh. For such happiness I can never be sufficiently grateful, even were I to die of grief through having met you only to lose you. You crossed my path, and by your existence alone you have proved that my ideal was no myth. However hard my lot may one day be, this dear, divine memory will be to me a talisman, a magic charm.