She got up as she said these words, rushed towards me and buried her head against my shoulder, seizing me with her hands in an agony of supreme grief. Her face contracted and turned up in a spasm of agony, and I had only just time to catch her. She fell unconscious into my arms. Without doubt this unconsciousness saved her, with the help of the torrent of tears which she shed when she recovered her senses. I saw her reawaken to life and realize her misery. Her confidences and the period of unconsciousness which followed them had moved me so deeply that I could find nothing to say except those commonplace words used to comfort a suffering person; and there is such difficulty in making use even of those when one takes into account the legitimate reasons the person has for suffering. Camille did not allow me to exhaust myself for long in these useless consolations. “I know that you love me,” she said with an attempt at a broken-hearted smile, which even now when I think of it makes me ill, “and I know, too, that you sincerely pity me. But you must let me weep, you know. With these tears it seems to me that my folly departs. I would like only one promise from you, a real man’s promise, your word of honour that you say 'yes’ to the request I am going to make you.” “You believe in my friendship,” I said to her. “You know that I will obey all your designs, whatever they may be.” “That is not sufficient,” she said at my evasive reply, behind which, seeing her so excited, I had sheltered a last remnant of prudence. What was she going to ask me? And she insisted: “It is your word of honour I want.” “You have it,” I told her, overcome by the sad supplication in her dear blue eyes from which the tears still flowed. “Thank you,” she said as she pressed my hand, and she added: “I want to be sure that you will not say anything to Jacques of what I have told you?” “I give you my word of honour,” I replied; “but you yourself will not be able to tell him.” “I?” she replied, shaking her head with grim pride. “I shall tell him nothing. I do not wish him to suspect me of spying upon him. I will quarrel with him without giving a reason. I shall have courage against my love now from disgust. I shall only have to recall what I have seen and heard.”