"That fatal love which alarmed you so is not renewed and never will be. You may set your mind at rest on that point. I came here with my patient, and put him aboard ship last night. If I have not saved his poor heart, and I hardly dare flatter myself that I have, I have made it better at all events, and through me it has enjoyed the sweet pleasure of friendship for a few moments. If I could have believed him, he was cured forever of his tempestuous outbreaks; but I could see plainly enough, from his contradictions and his relapses with respect to me, that the foundation of his nature is still unchanged, and the something still exists that I cannot define otherwise than as the love of that which is not. "Alas! yes, that child would like to have for his mistress some one like the Venus de Milo, enlivened with the breath of my patron Sainte Thérèse, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the same woman should be Sappho to-day and Jeanne d'Arc to-morrow. It is most unfortunate for me that I ever believed that, after adorning me in his imagination with all the attributes of the Divinity, he would not open his eyes the next day! It must be that, without suspecting it, I am very vain, to have accepted the task of inspiring a cult! But, no, I was not, I give you my word! I did not think of myself; on the day when I allowed myself to be placed on that altar, I said to him: 'Since you absolutely insist upon adoring me instead of loving me, which I should much prefer, why, adore me, reserving the right to crush me to-morrow!' "And he has crushed me! But of what can I complain? I anticipated it, and resigned myself to it beforehand. "But I was weak, undignified, and wretched when that horrible moment came. My courage returned, however, and God permitted me to recover more quickly than I hoped. "Now, I must speak to you of Palmer. You wish me to marry him, he wishes it, and I, too, did wish it! Do I wish it still? What shall I say, my beloved? I still am tortured by scruples and fears. Perhaps it is his fault. He could not or would not pass with me the last moments that I passed with Laurent; he left me alone with him three days, three days which I knew would be, and which actually were, without danger for me; but did he, Palmer, know it, and could he be sure of it? or--which would be much worse--did he say to himself that he must find out how far he could depend on me? There was on his part either a display of romantic unselfishness or an exaggerated discretion, which, in such a man, can come only from some worthy sentiment, but which has given me food for reflection none the less.