If he had been certain that the princess loved Michel, of which fact he was persuaded at times, with a feeling of utter stupefaction, he would have been almost entirely cured of his own mad passion. For he had given it so exalted a place in his thoughts that, as he had lost hope, so he had almost reached the point where he desired nothing. His passion had become a sort of pious habit, so ideal that it no longer touched the earth, and that by returning it, Agatha might have destroyed it instantly. Assume that she loved any man on earth, even the man who cherished so exalted an adoration for her, and she became in his eyes simply a woman, whose influence he could combat. That was the result of five years' suffering without the slightest presumption, and without a moment's intermission. In a heart of such strength and purity, the utmost order had prevailed amid the effervescence of a passion which resembled a beginning of madness; and it was precisely that circumstance which might be Magnani's salvation. Efforts to deaden his pain would have served only to excite him more, and after indulging in vulgar pleasures, he would have returned to his chimera with more suffering and more weakness; whereas by abandoning himself without resistance, without desire for repose, and without terror, to a martyrdom which might be everlasting, he had allowed the flame to become concentrated in one spot, where it burned dully, not fanned from without, and deprived of any fresh sustenance. Thus Magnani had reached that critical moment when a man must be cured or die, without any transition. He did not appreciate it, but it certainly was a fact, for his senses were awaking from a long period of numbness, and Agatha, far from contributing to the awakening, was the only woman to whom he would have blushed to attribute in his thoughts the perturbation that he felt. Little by little, he leaned toward the girl in order not to lose a single one of her words, and he ended by sitting down beside her, and asking her why it had occurred to her to talk of him with Princess Agatha. "Why, it is very simple," replied Mila; "she led me to do it by asking me which of the young mechanics of my acquaintance Michel had been most intimate with since he had arrived in the island; and as I hesitated between you and one or two of father's apprentices who assisted Michel, and whom he seemed to like, the princess herself said: