"Because I am beautiful, and I can never be loved." Then, as a long-repressed torrent bursts its barriers at last, she continued, with extraordinary energy: "It is true." She put her hand on her heaving bosom. "God had put into this heart all the qualities that I ridicule, that I blaspheme every hour of the day. But when he condemned me to be rich, he withdrew with one hand all that he had lavished with the other. What is the good of my beauty? What is the good of the devotion, tenderness, and enthusiasm which I feel burning within me? These are not the charms which make so many cowards weary me with their homage. I see it I know it—I know it too well. And if ever some disinterested, generous, and heroic soul loved me for what I am, and not for what I have ... I should never know ... never believe it. Eternal mistrust! That is my sentence—that is my torture. So I have decided ... I will never love. I will never pour into some vile, worthless, and venal heart the pure passion which is burning in mine. My soul will die virgin in my bosom. Well, I am resigned, but—everything that is beautiful, everything that sets me dreaming, everything that speaks to me of realms forbidden, everything that stirs these vain fires in me—I thrust it away, I hate it, I will have nothing to do with it." She stopped, trembling; then, in a lower tone, she said: "Monsieur, I did not seek this opportunity. I have not chosen my words ... I did not mean to tell you, but I have spoken ... you know all, and if at any time I have wounded your feelings, I think you will forgive me now." She held out her hand. When my lips touched that soft hand, still wet with tears, a mortal languor stole through my veins. Marguerite turned her head away, looked into the sombre sky, and then slowly descended the steps. "Let us go," she said. Another road, longer, but easier than the steep ascent of the mountain, brought us into the farmyard. Neither of us spoke a single word the whole way. What could I have said, I who was more to be suspected than any other? I felt that every word from my overcharged heart would separate me still further from this stormy, but adorable soul. Night had fallen, and hid from every one the signs of our common emotion. We drove away. After telling us again how much she had enjoyed her day, Mme. Laroque gave herself up to dreaming about it. Mlle. Marguerite, invisible and motionless in the deep shadow, seemed also to be sleeping; but when a bend in the road caused a ray of pale light to fall upon her, the fixed and open eyes showed that she was wakeful and silent, beset by the thought that caused her despair. I can scarcely say what I felt. A strange sensation of deep joy and deep bitterness possessed me entirely. I yielded to it as one sometimes yields consciously to a dream the charm of which we are not strong enough to resist. We reached home about midnight.