“To your pledged word,” ought I to have responded? “To a caprice of excitement,” I did respond. Strictly, this suicide had a signification, when to be forever separated from Charlotte filled me with despair. But now? We love each other, we belong to each other. Who can prevent us, young and free, from fleeing together, if on the next day we cannot endure separation? This hypothesis of an elopement brought before my mind the image of Count André. Why not make a note of this also? An exhilarating titillation of self-love ran through my heart at this souvenir. I looked at Charlotte again, and I felt filled with the most ferocious pride. The rivalry instituted by my secret envy between her brother and myself awoke again in a start of triumph. There is a celebrated proverb which says that all animals are sad after pleasure: “_Omne animal_.” It was not sadness that I felt then, but an absolute drying up of my tenderness, a rapid return--rapid as the action of a chemical precipitation--to a state of mind anterior. I do not believe that this displacement of sensibility could have taken more than half an hour. I continued to regard Charlotte, while abandoning myself to these passage of ideas, with the delight of a reconquered liberty. The fullness of the voluntary and reflective life flowed in me now, as the water of a river whose dam has been raised. The passion for this absent child had raised up a barrier against which the flood of my old sentiment was dammed up. This barrier thrown down, I became myself again. She was sleeping. I heard her light, equal breath, then suddenly a great sob, and she awoke: “Ah!” said she, pressing me to her in a convulsive fashion, “you are here, you are here. I had lost consciousness. I dreamed. Ah! what a dream! I saw my brother come toward you. Oh! the horrible dream!” She kissed me again, and, as her mouth was pressed to mine, the clock struck. She listened and counted the strokes. “Four o’clock,” said she, “it is time--farewell, my love, farewell.” She embraced me again. Her face had become calm in her exaltation, almost smiling. “Give me the poison,” said she in a firm voice. I remained immovable without answering. “You are afraid for me,” she resumed; “I shall know how to die. Give it to me.” I rose, still without replying. She sat up and clasped her hands without looking at me. Was she praying? Was this the last effort of this soul to extract the love of life which pushes its roots so deeply in a creature of twenty years? My resolution to prevent this double suicide was now absolute. I had the coolness to seize the brown vial from the table and carry it to a wardrobe and lock it. These preparations of which she took no notice no doubt seemed long to Charlotte, for she turned toward me: “I am ready,” said she. She saw my empty hands. The ecstatic expression changed to one of extreme anguish, and her voice grew harsh as she said: