"How could I have refused when you offered to show me an unknown Paris, the historic Paris where phantoms still abide? When I was quite little, I loved the portraits of my ancestors at Sézery; and for the pleasure of knowing fear, I imagined that they were coming back at night. Oh, our wonderful walks along the quays, in the hot sunshine, or in those little streets which you know, where you called up for me ghosts of the past! And St. Germain and Malmaison, and Chantilly that we visited in late Autumn, when the forest has lost its foliage, and one sees so far into its depths and into one's heart as well. Each one of our walks meant another bond to draw us together. No doubt they gave added zest to our instincts for research, to our intellectual life. Often (do you remember?) we investigated one by one those marvelous hypotheses which give us our desire for eternity. But it was for love that we were both eager. And I, I continue to tremble. Your life, you told me last night, could no longer exist without mine. But mine belongs to you for as long as you will. May it glide softly into yours without ever harming it! Without taking it, let it be of service to you. If you knew! I have no more confidence: it has never been very powerful in me, and these last ten years have killed it. I no longer believe in the happiness I can give, and I would offer my life for yours. Direct my weakness, my love: I feel so old and so young at the same time, and I love you. "ANNE." A business man is always somewhat skeptical about the sentimentality of love letters. From the facts which are an integral part of almost every brief, he knows with what euphemisms or what lack of perspective they are worded. But Philippe had been too often to the Château in former days not to recognize the candor of the young girl in this tone of passionate exaltation and anticipated discouragement. He only divined in her a more intense melancholy, like a latent languor. Her eyes must be less golden, her mouth more drooping, her body more slender. In a word, she must have partially lost her physical charm, which explained her unanswerable fear of the future, and Philippe was sufficiently cruel to rejoice in all those pictures which made her less desirable. Madame Derize reappeared first with her two children. The invisible comparison was greatly to her advantage. Thus framed, and with all the attraction of her youthfulness, he thought her singularly powerful. "You have read it?" she asked when he had kissed Marie-Louise and his godson, little Philippe. "Yes, Madame, but according to this letter she was not his mistress." She was dumbfounded at this interpretation. "Do not trifle with me: it is unkind." Guided by his professional skill, he had discovered an argument which he explained, not without having protested against her intentions: