'Never,' she said, and she kept her word. Meanwhile she saw her brother wasting away, his cheeks growing still thinner and a fierce light that frightened her burning in his sunken eyes. It was for this reason, then, that she generally chose the dangerous hour of twilight to come and sit with him. One day Fresneau had gone to take Constant for a walk in the Luxembourg; she herself had found some pretext for staying at home. She took her darling brother's hand in hers, and this dumb caress made the unhappy fellow feel inexpressibly sad. He returned her pressure without a word, her benign and soothing influence controlling him until thoughts of Desforges suddenly flashed across his brain. 'Leave me,' he said to Emilie, and she obeyed him in the hope of easing his pain. As soon as she was gone he buried his head in the pillows of the bed whilst jealousy gripped his heart with relentless claws. Ah! the agony of it! How many days had he spent in this fashion? Scarcely seven, but in his present sufferings they appeared to him an eternity. Looking at the almanac on the morning of the eighth day, he saw that May was drawing to an end. Although the pilgrimage he contemplated inspired him with horror, the bourgeois habits of regularity that had animated him throughout his life induced him to turn his steps once more towards the Rue des Dames. There was the landlady's bill to be paid and notice of leaving to be given her. He chose the afternoon for his visit, so as to be sure of not meeting Suzanne. 'Just as if she had not already forgotten me,' he said to himself. What were his feelings on finding not only her handkerchief and gloves, but next to them a note she had left there on a second visit addressed to 'M. d'Albert!' He tore it open, but his hands shook so terribly that it took him quite five minutes to read the few sentences it contained, many of the words, too, being half effaced by tears. 'I came back once more, my love! From the shrine of our passion, and in the name of the memories it must contain for you as well as for me, I entreat you to see me once again. Darling--will you not think of me here without those horrible flashes of hatred I have seen in your eyes? Remember what proofs of affection I have given you on the spot where you are reading these lines. No! I cannot live if you doubt what is the one, the only great truth of my life. I repeat once more that I am not angry nor indignant--I am in despair; if you do not believe me it is because, with my heart full of love and pain, I cannot stoop to artifice to make you believe anything. Good-bye, my love! How often have I repeated these words on the threshold of this room! And then I would add--_Au revoir!_ But I suppose it must really be good-bye now, both on my lips and in my heart--can it be good-bye for ever?'