I believed you loved me; I let myself cling to the hope that my life might begin anew; but all things have revealed my past,--even I myself, perhaps, for you must have distrusted a woman so passionate as you have found me. Alas! is there no excuse for my love and my deception? My life was like a troubled sleep; I woke and thought myself a girl; I was in Alencon, where all my memories were pure and chaste. I had the mad simplicity to think that love would baptize me into innocence. For a moment I thought myself pure, for I had never loved. But last night your passion seemed to me true, and a voice cried to me, ‘Do not deceive him.’ Monsieur le marquis,” she said, in a guttural voice which haughtily challenged condemnation, “know this; I am a dishonored creature, unworthy of you. From this hour I accept my fate as a lost woman. I am weary of playing a part,--the part of a woman to whom you had brought back the sanctities of her soul. Virtue is a burden to me. I should despise you if you were weak enough to marry me. The Comte de Bauvan might commit that folly, but you--you must be worthy of your future and leave me without regret. A courtesan is too exacting; I should not love you like the simple, artless girl who felt for a moment the delightful hope of being your companion, of making you happy, of doing you honor, of becoming a noble wife. But I gather from that futile hope the courage to return to a life of vice and infamy, that I may put an eternal barrier between us. I sacrifice both honor and fortune to you. The pride I take in that sacrifice will support me in my wretchedness,--fate may dispose of me as it will. I will never betray you. I shall return to Paris. There your name will be to me a part of myself, and the glory you win will console my grief. As for you, you are a man, and you will forget me. Farewell.” She darted away in the direction of the gorges of Saint-Sulpice, and disappeared before the marquis could rise to detain her. But she came back unseen, hid herself in a cavity of the rocks, and examined the young man with a curiosity mingled with doubt. Presently she saw him walking like a man overwhelmed, without seeming to know where he went. “Can he be weak?” she thought, when he had disappeared, and she felt she was parted from him. “Will he understand me?” She quivered. Then she turned and went rapidly towards Fougeres, as though she feared the marquis might follow her into the town, where certain death awaited him. “Francine, what did he say to you?” she asked, when the faithful girl rejoined her. “Ah! Marie, how I pitied him. You great ladies stab a man with your tongues.” “How did he seem when he came up to you?” “As if he saw me not at all! Oh, Marie, he loves you!” “Yes, he loves me, or he does not love me--there is heaven or hell for me in that,” she answered. “Between the two extremes there is no spot where I can set my foot.”