My aunt smiled sadly, and said to me, "My friend, you must feel that after such rumours we must live separate lives; to remain at Serval any longer would be to justify these calumnies. I know my daughter, and I know the purity of your sentiments; this is sufficient for me. But, my child, appearances are against us; the confidence I so legitimately have in your honour would be called weakness and carelessness. I should have remembered, alas! that the purest life has always been at the mercy of those who desire to cover it with disgrace. You know our position. Hélène is poor; she has nothing in the world but her good name. May it please God that these frightful lies have not gone so far as to do fatal and irreparable injury!" "Has Hélène been told of this?" I asked my aunt. "No, my friend; but she is of sufficiently strong mind to be told everything without concealment." "Well, then, my aunt, promise me to be gracious enough not to tell her until to-morrow." My aunt consented to my request and I went up to my own room. You may readily suppose that my vague and passing wish for solitude quickly vanished now that I was in real mental distress. The dinner was a sad affair; afterwards we returned to the salon. Hélène loved her mother too well and was also too fond of me not to perceive at once that we were worried; besides, I had not, in those days, enough dissimulation to hide my resentment. A thousand confused ideas were working in my brain; I could come to no decision; I recalled my long talks with Hélène, our frequent solitary walks, which were authorised by the familiarity of relationship and dated from our childhood; I thought of our simple pleasures, the involuntary preference I had always shown for Hélène's society; when walking she always had my arm; when on horseback I was always at her side; in fact I never quitted her. I saw then that to the most unprejudiced eyes such persistent attention must have gravely compromised Hélène. Then again, I remembered the thousand looks and signals arranged, beforehand between us, mute and amorous language not destined to escape the notice of the visitors we received. Fatal charm of first love, so engrossing as to leave us no thought except of ourselves! stupefying atmosphere in which we had been living so happy and so free from all care, and which we foolishly believed was impenetrable to the idle gaze of the world!