"Ah! Frédéric, I love you, too. I shall never love anyone else. Why, my dear, did you not long ago say those words, which make me so happy, and which I have been expecting so long? My uncle is very fond of me; he will never do anything to make me unhappy. If it be true that he has planned a marriage for me--he has never mentioned the subject--why, he must abandon it, for I will tell him that I will marry no one but you, that you alone can obtain my heart and hand; and he will consent, I am certain of it. He is fond of you too, Frédéric; indeed, who would not be? You see, you do wrong to be sad and depressed, and to conceal your sorrows from me. My dear, I read your heart long ago; should you not have been able to read mine?" Frédéric replied only by protestations of love; he was beside himself with joy; Mademoiselle de Valmont's avowal had disturbed his reason; not without difficulty did she succeed in calming him, and he did not leave her until she had repeated her solemn promise that she would never give her hand to another. Frédéric left the house in a very different frame of mind from that in which he had entered it. The certainty that Constance loved him had revolutionized all his ideas in an instant: in his delirious joy, Sister Anne was entirely forgotten; he did not even feel a pang of remorse. Like those sick persons who, when the fever is at its height, are unconscious of pain, he said to himself again and again: "Dubourg was quite right: I do love Constance, I adore her! I can never again love anybody else." Two days after this declaration, the Comte de Montreville, well assured that his son no longer thought of leaving Constance, set out for Dauphiné, in his own carriage, attended by a single servant and a postilion. XXII DEATH OF MARGUERITE.--SISTER ANNE LEAVES HER CABIN Let us now return to the dumb girl in the woods, whom we left awaiting Frédéric's coming, and whom we shall find still awaiting him. But the trees have lost their foliage; the fields no longer offer to the eye the pleasing prospect of luxuriant vegetation; there is no green turf in the valley, no verdure on the banks of the stream. The leaves have fallen, and the villager's steps are deadened by that which shaded him and embellished his garden a few days since. He tramples under foot the beautiful foliage to which the approach of a harsher season has brought death. Thus do all things pass away. Other foliage will be born, only to die in its turn; and the man who tramples upon it must likewise return to the dust whereon future generations will tread. He fancies himself of some account because his allotted time is longer; but when the ages have dispersed his ashes, what more will he have left behind him than those leaves have done which whirl about in the wind at his feet?