'But, unworthy as I am, should the feeling that I read in your eyes this morning--how beautiful they were at that moment, and how I shall always remember them!--should, I say, that feeling conquer your virtuous indignation, should that sympathy with which you reproached yourself still live in your heart, should you remain, in spite of yourself, the woman who wept when she heard me confess my love and adoration--then I conjure you, madame, to wrest some pity from that sympathy. Before confirming the sentence to which I am quite ready to submit--that terrible sentence never to see you more--let me ask you to put me to one single proof. My request is so humble, and so subservient to your will. Hear it, I beg. If I have guessed rightly from the all too short and fleeting conversations we have had, your life, though apparently so complete, is devoid of many things. Have you never felt the need of having near you a friend to whom you could confide your troubles, a friend who would never speak to you again as he once dared to do, but who would be content to breathe the same air as yourself, and to share your joys and sorrows--a friend on whom you could rely, whom you could take or leave at your sweet will--in a word, a thing of your own, whose very thoughts would be yours? Such a friend, with no desire beyond that of serving you, regretting only that he has not always done so, and entertaining no criminal hopes whatever, is what I dreamt of becoming before that interview in which my feelings were stronger than my will. And I feel that I love you sufficiently to realise that dream even now. Nay, do not shake your head. I am sincere in my entreaties, sincere in my determination never to utter a word which will make you repent your forbearance if you decide to put me to this proof. Will it not be time enough to banish me from your presence when you think me in danger of breaking the promise I now make? 'My God! how empty my phrases seem! I tremble at the thought that you will read these lines, and that is why I can scarcely write them. What will your answer be? Will you call me back to that shrine in the Rue Murillo where you have already been so kind and so full of indulgence that the memory of the minutes spent there falls like balm upon my aching heart? That poor heart beats only for you in obedient and humble admiration. Say--oh! say that you forgive me. Say that you will let me see you once more. Say that you will let us try to be friends. You would say all this, I know, if you could read what is in my heart. And even if you do not speak those blessed words, there shall be no murmuring, no reproaches, nothing but eternal gratitude--gratitude as deep in martyrdom as it would have been in ecstasy. I have learnt to-day how sweet it is to suffer through those one loves!'