"Oh, it means much and many things, Clémence," replied the Count: "it takes in a wide range of painful feelings; and when I acknowledge, and again and again say, that the words I have spoken are true as Heaven; when, again and again, I say that I love you deeply, devotedly, entirely, better than aught else on earth, I grieve that I have said them, I feel that I have done wrong." Clémence de Marly withdrew her hand, not sharply, not coldly, but mournfully, and she raised her fair countenance towards the sky as if asking, with apprehension at her heart, "What is thy will, oh Heaven?"--"Albert of Morseiul," she said, "if you have any cause to regret that those words have been spoken, let them be for ever between us as if unspoken. They shall never by me be repeated to any one. You may perhaps one day, years hence," and as she spoke her eyes filled with tears,--"you may perhaps regret what you are now doing; but it will be a consolation to you then to know, that even though you spoke words of love and then recalled them, they were ever, as they ever shall be, a consolation and a comfort to me. The only thing on earth that I could fear was the blame of my own heart for having thought you loved me,--and perhaps loved," she added, while a deep blush again spread over all her countenance, "and perhaps loved, when you did not. You have shielded me from that blame: you have taken away all self-reproach; and now God speed you, Albert! Choose your own path, follow the dictates of your own heart, and your own conscience, and farewell!" "Stay, stay, Clémence," said the Count de Morseiul, detaining her by the hand. "Yet listen to me; yet hear me a few words farther!" She turned round upon him with one of her former smiles. "You know how easily such requests are granted," she said; "you know how willingly I would fain believe you all that is noble, and just, and honourable, and perfectly incapable of trifling with a woman's heart." "First, then," said the Count, "let me assure you that the words I have spoken were not, as you seemed to have imagined, for your ear alone, to be disavowed before the world. Ever shall I be ready, willing, eager to avow those words, and the love I feel, and have spoken of, will never, can never die away in my heart. But oh, Clémence, do you remember the words that passed between us in this very garden, as to whether a woman could love twice? Do you remember what you acknowledged yourself on that occasion?"