“I wrote to you to come here to-day in order to tell you that--that--” she paused. She did not know what she had to tell him. Was it that she considered that he had tricked her into an acceptance of the terms on which he had granted her petition for liberty? Was it that she had merely changed her mind in regard to him? “I wish to tell you that--that you must have misunderstood--I cannot tell how--the effect of the letter which I wrote to you--of the explanation I made to you the last time we met.” “Good heavens! what can you possibly mean, my Josephine?” said he in a maelstrom of astonishment; but she thought she could detect an artificial gesture for all the swirl: the whirlpool was a machine made one. “Good heavens! where was the possibility of a mistake?” “I don’t know,” she replied. “I meant to be clear enough. I told you that I wanted to be freed from the consequences of our engagement; you freed me, and yet a few days later, you go to my father and tell him that all we want is his sanction for our engagement--our engagement that was annulled some time before.” “What,” he cried, “can you forget that the only reason you put forward for wishing to be free--nominally free--was that you felt uneasy at the secrecy of our engagement? You said you felt as if you were guilty of double-dealing because your father had not given his consent--you said all this, my dearest, the last time we met, and your saying so--your feeling so--filled me with remorse--the deepest remorse--the intensest self-reproach. I had caused you to suffer, and what more natural than that I make the attempt at the earliest possible moment to atone for what I had done--to remove the one cause of your suffering? I made up my mind that I would risk all to save you from further self-reproach. I took my life in my hand, so to speak--I risked all on a simple cast for your sake--I went to your father... well, by giving his consent he withdrew the cause--the very reasonable cause, I admit of your--your uneasiness. Surely you remember?” “I remember everything,” she said. “I asked you to free me--to release me from the promise I had made to you and you released me.” “You place too great emphasis on my simple act,” said he. “What man worthy of the name of man would have been less generous than I was? Could I forget that you had suffered on my account? Oh, my Josephine, I could not but release you from your promise--your promise of secrecy. But I trusted you--I knew I could trust you.” She perceived in a moment the position in which he meant to place her. “But it was not from my promise of secrecy that I begged you to free me,” she said; “it was from my engagement--I wished to be free altogether, and you agreed. I was free when we parted. I did not consider myself bound to you in any way.”