“You have renounced me,” he wrote to Pauline, “and what time have you chosen to do it? The very moment which I had announced to your friends and mine, would be that of our union. I have seen the perfidy which has caused everything to turn against me, even to my offers. I have seen you, you who have so often sighed at the injustice which others have done me, join yourself to them to create wrongs of which I never thought. If I had not had the intention of marrying you, would I have put so little form into the services which I rendered you? Would I have assembled your friends and mine two months before your refusal, to announce to them my resolution? Everything has turned against me. The conduct of a friend, two-faced and perfidious, in giving me a cruel lesson, has taught me that there is no woman so honest and so tender who cannot be seduced and made to change. Also the contempt of all those who have seen him act, is his just recompense. Let us come back to you. It is not without regret that I have turned my thoughts from you, since the first heat of my resentment has passed, and when I insisted that you should write formally that you refused my offer of marriage, there was mixed with my chagrin, an obscure curiosity to see whether you would take this last step with me; to-day I must know absolutely how I stand. I have received very advantageous propositions of marriage, on the point of accepting I felt myself suddenly arrested; I do not know what scruple of honor, what return toward the past, made me hesitate. I have every reason to feel myself free and disengaged from you after all that has passed; nevertheless, I am far from tranquil, your letters do not say formally enough what is most important for me to know. Reply truly, I beg of you. Have you so completely renounced me that I am free to contract with another woman? Consult your heart upon this point, while my delicacy questions you. If you totally have cut the knot which should unite us, don’t fear to tell me so. In order that your _amour-propre_ be completely at ease upon the demand which I make, I add this, that in writing to you I have put back everything to where it was before all these storms. My demand would not be just if, setting a trap for you, I did not give you the liberty of choice in your reply. Let your heart answer alone. If you do not give me back my liberty, write me that you are the same Pauline, sweet and tender for life, whom I used to know, and that you believe yourself happy to belong to me, instantly I break with everything that is not you. If your heart is turned to another, and invincibly estranged from me, do me the justice of admitting that I have been honest with you. Give to the bearer of this, the declaration which frees me and I shall feel that I have accomplished my duty and shall have no reproach to make myself. Adieu, I am, up to the moment of your reply, under whatever title it shall please you to choose, Mademoiselle, your very humble servant, etc.