"My object, my motive? I tell you again that I don't understand you," said she, shaking her head; then overcome with astonishment: "Stop, Arthur, you are torturing me; in the name of your mother, explain yourself clearly. What do you want of me? What is the meaning of all these questions?" "Very well, then! I will follow your example, and speak with equal frankness, liberality, and clearness; like you I give free rein to my sudden impulses, without the least _arrière-pensée_, without the slightest calculation; and as there is no doubt about your becoming my wife, and when that delightful hour arrives we will wish to be in each other's confidence, I will tell you how and why I have loved you, but before doing so I mean to exact from you a similar confession. It will be a mutual exchange of generous and tender sentiments which will be a consolation to my poor troubled heart, do you not think so?" I said all this with a cold, cruel, and ironical manner which wounded the poor child to the quick, and distressed her greatly, though she could not understand the withering allusions with which I blighted her pure and unselfish love. Now that I can calmly reflect on this scene, I shudder to think how much Hélène must have suffered in hearing me speak to her thus for the first time. I can see her yet, standing pale, cold, and trembling with anxiety in the middle of that pavilion, with its rustic furniture and its open windows where the thick fog was drifting in; I blush with shame when I remember that it was to an acknowledged enemy, defiant and determined to interpret everything to his own justification, she was summoned to reveal all those chaste and tender feelings which had preceded her avowal,--those treasures unknown to the lover which disclose the joys, alarms, and pains that he has unwittingly caused. At last, Hélène, overcoming her agitation, said: "Arthur, I cannot conceive of what is passing in your mind; you wish me to tell you how and why I have loved you. Ah!" said she, her eyes filled with tears, "it is very simple. _Mon Dieu!_ When I was still a very little child, I heard my mother constantly speaking about you, of the solitary life your father made you live, without any of the amusements suited to your age, without any young friends, occupied almost all the time with serious study, and deprived of almost every joy and pleasure of youth. The first impressions of you were that you were very unhappy and much to be pitied, and I pitied you because, in knowing how much I possessed, I thought of all that you missed: I had young companions whom I loved; my mother, always tender and good, entered into all our childish pleasures. So that sometimes, without knowing wherefore, I felt ashamed of myself for being so happy while you were living a life that seemed to me so forlorn and isolated.