As I was crossing the public square one evening I saw two men standing together; one of them said: “It appears to me that he has ill-treated her.” “It is her fault,” replied the other; “why choose such a man? He has known only public women; she is paying the price of her folly.” I advanced in the darkness to see who was speaking thus, and to hear more if possible; but they passed on as soon as they spied me. I found Brigitte much disturbed; her aunt was seriously ill; she had time for only a few words with me. I did not see her for an entire week; I knew that she had summoned a physician from Paris; finally she sent for me. “My aunt is dead,” she said; “I lose the only one left me on earth, I am now alone in the world, and I am going to leave the country.” “Am I, then, nothing to you?” “Yes, my friend; you know that I love you, and I often believe that you love me. But how can I count on you? I am your mistress, alas! but you are not my lover. It is for you that Shakespeare has written these sad words: ‘Make thy doublet of changeable taffeta, for thy mind is a very opal.’ And I, Octave,” she added, pointing to her mourning costume, “I am reduced to a single color, and I shall not change it for a long time.” “Leave the country if you choose; I will either kill myself or I will follow you. Ah! Brigitte,” I continued, throwing myself on my knees before her, “you thought you were alone when your aunt died! That is the most cruel punishment you could inflict on me; never have I so keenly felt the misery of my love for you. You must retract those terrible words; I deserve them, but they will kill me. Oh, God! can it be true that I count for nothing in your life, or that I am an influence in your life only because of the evil I have done you!” “I do not know,” she said, “who is busying himself in our affairs; certain insinuations, mixed with idle gossip, have been set afloat in the village and in the neighboring country. Some say that I have been ruined; others accuse me of imprudence and folly; others represent you as a cruel and dangerous man. Some one has spied into our most secret thoughts; things that I thought no one else knew, events in your life and sad scenes to which they have led, are known to others; my poor aunt spoke to me about it not long ago, and she knew it some time before speaking to me. Who knows but that that has hastened her death? “When I meet my old friends in the street, they either treat me coldly, or turn aside. Even my dear peasant girls, those good girls who love me so much, shrug their shoulders when they see my place empty at the Sunday afternoon balls. How has that come about? I do not know, nor do you, I suppose; but I must go away, I can not endure it. And my aunt’s death, so sudden, so unexpected, above all, this solitude! this empty room! Courage fails me; my friend, my friend, do not abandon me!”