After some time Marguerite became calm. Never in my life can I forget the first look she gave me when she raised her tear-stained face towards mine; in that look there was reproach, pardon, and pity. "You have been very cruel, or else out of your mind," said she, after a long silence, "but I cannot be angry with you. I should have told you everything; twenty times at least, I have tried to do so, but I was afraid, you were so ironical and cold, your sudden and extraordinary conversion to the pleasures of the world,--everything repelled me." "Ah, I believe it, I believe it, how can you ever pardon me? But, yes; you will forgive me when I tell you how much I have suffered by this frightful suspicion. Ah, if you knew how unjust and hateful grief can make a man! If you knew what it was to say, 'I love her to distraction, I idolise her, there is not a charm of her mind, her soul, or her person that I do not appreciate and admire, she is for me all in all,--and yet another--' ah, can you not see how such an idea is enough to set one wild, to make a man wish to die? Think of it, and you will have pity on me,--you will excuse because you will understand my rages, which I scarcely am ashamed of because I was wild from suffering." "Did I not pardon you when I said to you, 'Return,' after that frightful morning?" said she, with the greatest gentleness. "Oh, my life, my whole life shall be spent in expiation of this hour of folly. Marguerite, I swear that in me you will have the most devoted friend, the kindest brother; let me only come and worship you, let me come each day to contemplate in you the treasures of nobility, candour, and goodness that for an instant I misunderstood. You shall see that I am worthy of your confidence." "Oh, now I believe you, and you shall know everything. I will tell you all, I will tell you what I have never dared to confide to any other; and yet you must not think that I am about to tell you any extraordinary secret. Nothing is simpler than what you are going to hear. It is only the proof of the saying, 'If the world can always discover false and guilty sentiments, it never believes there are any sentiments that are natural, true, and generous.'" "Ah, what shame, what remorse must it ever be to me to have shared such stupid and malicious prejudices! Why did I not listen to the inward voice that said to me, 'Believe, have faith in her?' With what noble exultation could I now have said, 'I alone was able to understand her pure and generous nature!'"