I resolved that if, at midnight, she had not come, I would drink the poison. I had studied the effects of it, and hoped I should not suffer very long. It is strange that all that day was passed in a singular serenity. I was as if relieved of a weight, as if really detached from myself, and my anxiety commenced only toward ten o’clock, when, having retired first, I had placed the letter on the table in the room of the young girl. At half-past ten I heard through my partly-open door the marquis, the marquise and Charlotte ascending the stairs. They stopped to talk a few minutes in the passage, then there were the customary good-nights, and each entered a separate chamber. Eleven o’clock--a quarter-past eleven. Still nothing. I looked at my watch, placed in front of me, near three letters prepared for M. de Jussat, for my mother, and for you, my dear master. My heart beat as if it would burst; but I wish you to note that my will was firm and cool. I had told Mlle. de Jussat that she would not see me the next day. I was sure of not failing my word if--I did not dare to strengthen what hope this “if” contained. I watched the second-hand go round and I made a mechanical calculation, an exact multiplication: “at sixty seconds a minute, I shall see the hand go round so many times, for at midnight I shall kill myself.” A noise of furtive and light steps on the stairs, which I perceived with supreme emotion, interrupted my calculation. These steps approached. They stopped before my door. Suddenly the door was opened. Charlotte was before me. I arose. We rested thus face to face, both standing. Her face was distorted by the shock of her own action, very pale, and her eyes shone with an extraordinary brilliancy, nearly black, so dilated was the pupil by emotion, almost covering the iris. I noticed this detail because it transformed her physiognomy. Ordinarily so reserved, her face betrayed the wildness of a being ruled by a passion stronger than her will. She must have lain down, then arose again, for her hair was braided in a large plait instead of being knotted on her head. A white _robe-de-chambre_, fastened by a cord and tassel was folded around her form, and in her haste she had slipped her bare feet into her slippers without thinking. Evidently an insupportable anguish had precipitated her from her chamber into my room. She did not care what I might think of her nor what I might be tempted to say. She had read my letter, and she came, a prey to an excitement so intense that she did not tremble. “Ah!” said she in a broken voice after the silence of the first minute. “God be praised, I am not too late. Dead! I believed you were dead! Ah! that is horrible! But that is all over, is it not? Say that you will obey me, say that you will not kill yourself. Ah! swear, swear it to me.”