'My novel appeared, and I wrote to her again--letters in which I delighted in humbling myself, letters that she might show about and say: "He has left me, he insults me, and yet see how he loves me!" Should not those very insults have proved to her how much I loved her? You don't know her, René; you don't know how proud she is, in spite of all her faults. What pain that wretched novel must have caused her I scarcely dare to think, and that, too, is why I dare not come back. In my present state of mind I could not possibly face a scene such as we used to have, and to live longer without her is equally beyond me. I have therefore decided, my dear René, to ask you to go and speak to her. I know that she has always liked you, and that she is really grateful to you for the pretty _rôle_ you wrote her. I know that she will believe you when you say to her, "Claude can stand it no longer--have pity on him." Tell her, too, René, that she need have no fear of my horrible temper. The rebellious Larcher she could not bear exists no longer. To be near her, to live in her shadow, to have her near me, I will tolerate all, all--you understand. Our last months together were not all honey, it is true, but what a paradise they were compared with this Inferno of absence! And we had our happy hours, too--those afternoons we spent together in her rooms in the Rue de Rivoli, overlooking the gardens of the Tuileries. The bustle of the great city went on around us as I held my darling pressed to my heart. See how my hand trembles only to think of it! If I have ever done you a service in the past, as you say I have, be my friend now and call on her, show her this letter, speak to her, appeal to her heart. Ask her to say that she forgives me and that I may come back to her. Good-bye. I await your reply in agony, and you know what torture that machine is capable of suffering which calls itself your old friend. 'C. L. 'P.S.--Go to the _Revue_ office and ask for five copies of my story; I can get rid of them here.' 'How like him!' said René, after having read this strange epistle, which was nothing but a bundle of the different elements that made up Claude's composite personality. Childish sincerity wedded to a taste for dramatic display; a love of posing even when suffering bitter anguish; most susceptible professional vanity and an absolute lack of all pretensions; profound self-knowledge and total inability to govern himself--all this was there. 'I shall go to the theatre to-night if Colette is playing,' said René to himself. He bought a paper and saw her name in the list for that evening. 'But,' he thought, 'how will she receive me?'