"Yes," said Madame d'Estrelle, "I will go on to the end! Tell me, is there not something to sign?" And she thought: "I will kill myself afterward!" "You have to enter into no new engagements," replied Marcel; "but you must consent to receive Monsieur Antoine and thank him. I am certain now that he would really make Julien a rich man if you would agree to a sort of reconciliation." "Bring Monsieur Antoine here," said Julie.--"I will kill myself to-night," she said to herself when Marcel had gone. Julie's love had made such progress in her despair that she was no longer capable of sound reasoning. Her love had become an accepted martyrdom; she lived wholly on the excitement of that martyrdom. She wrote to Julien: "Here is the key to the pavilion. Come at midnight; you will find me there. I am going on a long journey. I want to say adieu to you forever." She put the key in the letter, sealed it, ordered the most reliable of her servants to mount and ride at full speed to Sèvres, and bring her a reply. It was five o'clock in the afternoon. She went out into the garden to await Monsieur Antoine and stopped on the edge of the pond. The water was not very deep; but by lying down at full length!--One who wants to die can always find a way. The variety of suicide which had so tempted Julien a few days before, suggested itself to her with ghastly tranquillity. "Nobody else on earth cares for me," she thought. "As I cannot be his, I will not be any man's. An infernal hatred has seized me by the throat and strangled me in the midst of my life and my happiness. They are not satisfied to deprive me of love and liberty, they seek to deprive me of honor too. Marcel himself said that I must consent to be reputed that old man's mistress. Ah! if Julien knew that, how he would abhor the comfort in which his mother is living! And if she should suspect it!--They shall both remain in ignorance of it, I am determined; my death will be the result of an accident. It will be impossible to retract the bargain we are about to make. Julien will be rich and honored. No one will ever guess at what price." Once more the thought passed through Julie's mind that it was in her power and Julien's to shake off all these chains and to be united in spite of poverty. "He would be happier so," she thought, "and perhaps I am sacrificing myself to his undoing! But who knows where Monsieur Antoine's hatred would stop? A raving maniac is capable of anything; perhaps he would have him murdered. Has he not secret agents, spies, cutthroats, in his service?" Her brain was in a whirl, she walked round and round the basin as if she were impatiently awaiting the fatal hour. And then, when she thought that she was about to see Julien again, her heart returned to life with a mighty throb, and beat as if it would burst. She had no feeling of remorse, no scruple about breaking oaths extorted from her by the most revolting moral constraint.