"Do sickness and disease, then, exist only in Paris?" exclaimed Madame de Guéran. "Shall we not find them in those regions which I ask you to traverse with me? I looked upon you as the most useful of my travelling companions, not merely for the attention you would have lavished upon us in those territories where the strongest have to succumb to fever, but more especially for the numerous cures you would have wrought amongst those tribes abandoned or disowned by science. They whom you succour here are worthy of your interest, I admit, but are they not also, to a certain extent, the victims of false pride and their own improvidence? When a sick child belonging to them, for instance, is day by day wasting away, they take no notice of it—they wait for you to come to them. You are right to go, undoubtedly, but in the countries which I purpose visiting there are both suffering and death, and if the doctor is not called in, it is simply because medicine is unknown. Have you not, therefore, a mission to fulfil in the midst of these ignorant tribes, as well as by the bedsides of your poor?" "It is not alone a question of my poor," said M. Desrioux, sadly. Too astonished to speak, she was regarding him with a questioning air when, suddenly, he went to her side, and, seizing her hands before she could prevent him, exclaimed— "Do not let anything I am about to say wound you. If I do love you, my respect for you is as thorough as my love. Eight days ago, after having listened to you almost with veneration, I left this house enraptured, carried away by enthusiasm. And was it to be wondered at? You summoned me to live your life for months, perhaps for years; you desired that I should share your joys and your sorrows, should protect you, defend you, minister to you! You gave me permission to adore you every hour of my life—and that—that to me was light, and warmth, and happiness, aye, life itself! Ah! if you but knew how I love you! For pity's sake let me speak, I beseech you, for I may, perhaps, never see you more! I have not lived the life of those about me—I have always worked and struggled—study and science have been my only love. I met you, and science 'paled her ineffectual fire.' From that moment I had but one single thought—to see you again, to be close to you, to be something in your life. The dismal garrets visited by me each morning looked bright and cheerful from the hope that I might see you ere night. And then, the ecstasy of the thought that, by your own free will, I was not to leave you! Nay, more than that, you held before my eyes the gleaming hope that one day, perhaps—Ah, that was more than hope, it was certainty! Yes, yes! I know it, I feel it—I should have triumphed—I should have deserved you, in that I love you best!"