"You do? and that wasn't what brought you home?" "Oh! mademoiselle, is it possible that you think that I can love your sister still! Oh, no! you cannot think it, for you would despise me if you had such an opinion of me as that." "What! can it be possible? Gustave, Monsieur Gustave, you no longer love my sister? Oh! what joy! Mon Dieu! I don't know what I am saying. I mean that I think you will be happier now; and you have been sad and unhappy so long!" "Yes, for a long, long time. And don't you think that I deserve to be rewarded for my constancy by finding at last a heart that does understand me, a woman who has--a little love for me?" "A little? Oh! you will find one who loves you dearly! At least, I should think so, because you deserve it so well!" "Dear Adolphine! Oh! I beg your pardon, mademoiselle, for presuming still to address you in that way." "Why, it doesn't offend me--far from it." "You have always been so kind to me! If you knew what pleasure it gives me at this moment to be sitting beside you again, looking at you, and reading what is written in your lovely, soft eyes! Oh! do not look away! Let me seek in them the hope of a sincere affection and an untroubled happiness!" "Oh! mon Dieu! you make me tremble. Oh! pray don't say such things to me, if you don't mean them; for, you see, I too have been unhappy for such a long time! I have suffered in silence; for I dared not avow my sentiments; and I had to look on at the happiness of another, who was loved, adored, although she did not deserve such good-fortune; and I--I had to conceal all that I felt!" Gustave seized Adolphine's hands and fell at her feet. "Then it is true!" he cried; "you do love me? Ah! my whole life will be too short to pay you for this love! How many days of happiness I owe you in exchange for the torments I have caused you!" "But it wasn't your fault, Gustave; you could not guess that I loved you. Besides, you loved my sister then; but now you don't love her any more, do you? Oh! tell me again that you don't love her!" "As if it were possible for me to love her! Ah! my heart does not divide its allegiance, and now it is yours, yours only!" "Mon Dieu! I must be dreaming, I am so happy!--Madeleine! Madeleine! come here! It is I whom he loves, it is I whom he wants to marry--and he knows that I will never refuse him!" Madeleine was not far away. Servants are never far from people who are talking. She came skipping into the room like a crazy person, for she was really happy in her mistress's happiness. "We were just talking about you when you came, monsieur," she said to Gustave; "I often talk about you to mamzelle, because I have found that that's the best way to make her listen to me. _Dame!_ I'm from the country, but I guessed, all the same, what made mamzelle so sad; and now I'm sure that she'll be happy like me! and that she'll sing and dance like me!"