“You have caused me pain, a great deal of pain. Already! I passed a sorrowful evening, and slept wretchedly all night. I have reflected seriously upon our dispute; I have endeavoured to persuade myself that I was in the wrong: I have neither been able to succeed, nor to comprehend you. Ah! how your lack of confidence astonishes me! It is so easy to believe when one loves. Please write me word quickly that you also have reflected, and that you have acknowledged your misdemeanour. I will not insist upon your doing penance, your face humbled to the ground; but I will condemn you to love me to-day more than yesterday, to-morrow more than to-day. Upon these conditions, I will pass a sponge across your grave error, and we shall speak of it no more. “Ever yours. It is agreed, is it not?” Samuel Brohl had the surprise of receiving at the same time another letter, thus worded: “MY DEAR COUNT: I cannot explain to myself your conduct; you no longer give me any signs of life. I believed that I had some claims upon you, and that you would hasten to announce to me in person the great event of events, and seek my congratulations. Come, I beg of you, and dine this evening at Maisons with Abbe Miollens, who is dying to embrace you; he studies men in Horace, you know, and he finds none whom he prefers to you. “You need not answer, but come; else I will be displeased with you as long as I live.” Samuel replied as follows to Mlle. Moriaz: “Be assured I have suffered more than you. Forgive me; much should be forgiven a man who has suffered much. My imagination is subject to the wildest alarms. Great, unlooked-for joy has rendered me mistrustful. I have been especially low-spirited of late. After having resolutely fought against my happiness, I tremble now lest it escape me; it appears to me too beautiful not to prove only a dream. To be loved by you! How can I help fearing to lose the great boon? Each evening I ask myself: ‘Will she still love me to-morrow?’ Perhaps my anxiety is blended with secret remorse. My pride, ever on the alert to take umbrage, has often been my torment; you can tell me it is only self-love: I will endeavour to cure myself of it, but this cannot be done in a day. During these long months of waiting there will come to me more than one suspicion, more than one troubled thought. I promise you, however, that I shall maintain a rigid silence concerning them, and, if possible, hide them.