"No, I have other questions to ask you. To whom do you suppose that I said that?" "I suppose nothing. I know no one but Monsieur Palmer, with whom the nature of your relations is not known." "Ah!" cried Thérèse, with a strange air of satisfaction, "so you think it was Monsieur Palmer?" "Why should it not be he? Do I insult you by supposing the possibility of an old liaison recently renewed? I know that your relations with all those whom I have seen here for the past three months are as disinterested on their part and as indifferent on yours as my own relations with you. Monsieur Palmer is very handsome, and he has the manners of a gallant man. I like him very much. I have neither the right nor the presumption to examine you touching your private sentiments. But--you will say that I have been watching you." "I shall, indeed," rejoined Thérèse, who did not seem to think of denying anything whatsoever; "why do you watch me? It seems to me a wretched thing to do, although I don't understand it at all. Tell me how you came to do it." "Thérèse!" replied the young man eagerly, determined to rid himself of all that he had on his mind, "tell me that you have a lover, and that Palmer is the man, and I will love you truly, I will talk to you with absolute frankness. I will ask your pardon for an outbreak of madness, and you shall never have any reason to reproach me. Come, do you wish me to be your friend? Despite all my boasting, I feel that I need your friendship and that I am capable of being your friend. Be frank with me, that is all that I ask of you!" "My dear fellow," Thérèse replied, "you talk to me as if I were a coquette who was trying to keep you by her side, and who had some confession to make. I cannot accept that situation; it is in no respect suited to me. Monsieur Palmer is not and never will be to me anything more than a highly valued friend, with whom I am not even on intimate terms, and whom I had lost sight of for a long time until recently. So much I may say to you, but nothing more. My secrets, if I have any, do not require a confidant, and I beg you to take no more interest in them than I desire you to do. It is not for you to question me, therefore, but to answer my questions. What were you doing here four days ago? Why were you watching me? What is the _outbreak of madness_ which I am to know about and pass judgment upon?" "The tone in which you speak to me is not encouraging. Why should I confess, when you no longer deign to treat me as a comrade and to have confidence in me?" "Do not confess then," said Thérèse, rising. "That will prove to me that you did not deserve the esteem I felt for you, and that you did not reciprocate it in the least, since you tried to find out my secrets." "So you turn me out," said Laurent, "and it is all over between us?" "It is all over, adieu!" replied Thérèse in a severe tone.