From this hour I felt my love descending from the wild storms of the brain into the healthy regions of the heart. Devotion seemed no longer an enigma to me. I resolved that on the very next morning I would give proof of my submission and affection. It was quite late when I returned to the chateau, tired out, dying of hunger, and exhausted by the emotions I had experienced. I entered the pantry, found a piece of bread, and began eating it, all moist with my tears. I was leaning against the stove in the dime light of a lamp that was almost out, when I suddenly saw Edmee enter. She took a few cherries from a chest and slowly approached the stove, pale and deep in thought. On seeing me she uttered a cry and let the cherries fall. “Edmee,” I said, “I implore you never to be afraid of me again. That is all I can say now; for I do not know how to explain myself; and yet I had resolved to say many things.” “You must tell me them some other time, cousin,” she answered, trying to smile. But she was unable to disguise the fear she felt at finding herself alone with me. I did not try to detain her. I felt deeply pained and humiliated at her distrust of me, and I knew I had no right to complain. Yet never had any man stood in greater need of a word of encouragement. Just as she was going out of the room I broke down altogether, and burst into tears, as on the previous night at the chapel window. Edmee stopped on the threshold and hesitated a moment. Then, yielding to the kindly impulses of her heart, she overcame her fears and returned towards me. Pausing a few yards from my chair, she said: “Bernard, you are unhappy. Tell me; is it my fault?” I was unable to reply; I was ashamed of my tears, but the more I tried to restrain them the more my breast heaved with sobs. With men as physically strong as I was, tears are generally convulsions; mine were like the pangs of death. “Come now! Just tell me what is wrong,” cried Edmee, with some of the bluntness of sisterly affection. And she ventured to put her hand on my shoulder. She was looking at me with an expression of wistfulness, and a big tear was trickling down her cheek. I threw myself on my knees and tried to speak, but that was still impossible. I could do no more than mutter the word _to-morrow_ several times. “‘To-morrow?’ What of tomorrow?” said Edmee. “Do you not like being here? Do you want to go away?” “I will go, if it will please you,” I replied. “Tell me; do you wish never to see me again?” “I do not wish that at all,” she rejoined. “You will stop here, won’t you.” “It is for you to decide,” I answered. She looked at me in astonishment. I was still on my knees. She leant over the back of my chair. “Yes; I am quite sure that you are good at heart,” she said, as if she were answering some inner objection. “A Mauprat can be nothing by halves; and as soon as you have once known a good quarter of an hour, it is certain you ought to have a noble life before you.”