By degrees his absences became longer and more frequent, until at last he used merely to come to St. Germains for a few minutes at a time (generally on horseback, to save time on the road), and always returning to Paris the same afternoon, so that we completely lost his company of an evening. Madame de B. used to joke him for having deserted us, would I could have done so too! One morning, as we were walking in the forest, I perceived him coming full gallop at a distance. He had been absent nearly the whole week; as he approached us, he jumped from his horse, and began walking with us. After a few minutes general conversation, we remained behind, and began conversing as in former times. I remarked it. "In former times!" cried he, "Had I ever any thing to say in former times? I have only begun to exist since I have known my Anais! Ah, Ourika, I never can express to you what I feel for her. Sometimes it seems to me as if my whole soul were passing into her's. When she looks at me I can no longer breathe;--if she blushes, I long to throw myself in adoration at her feet;--and when I think that I am to become the protector of this angel, and that she trusts her happiness, her life, her fate to me, ah! how proud am I of my own! I shall replace the parents she has lost, but I shall likewise be her husband! her lover! Her first affections will be mine,--our hearts will flow into each other, and our lives mingle into one; nor during their whole current, shall she have to say that I have given her an hour's pain. "How rapturous are my feelings, Ourika, when I reflect that she will be the mother of my children, and that they will owe their life to my Anais! Ah! they will be beautiful and good as she is! Tell me, merciful heaven, what have I done to deserve such happiness?" Oh! what a different question was I then addressing there! I had listened to his passionate discourse with the most unaccountable sensations. Thou knowest, O Lord, that I envied not his happiness, but why gavest thou life to poor Ourika? Why did she not perish on board the slave ship she was snatched from, or on the bosom of her mother. A little African sand would have covered her infant body, and light would have been the burthen. Why was Ourika condemned to live? To live alone? Ever and for ever alone? Never to be loved! O my God! do not permit it! Take thy poor Ourika from hence! No creature wants her; must she linger desolate through life! * * * * * This heart-rending thought seized me with more violence than it ever had. I felt my knees sinking under me. My eyes closed, and I thought that I was dying. * * * * *