"The proof is that I seek you always and everywhere; that though dreading your presence I would have given anything in the world to see you a moment in the distance. The proof is, too, that while prowling about Fontainebleau, or Paris, or St. Germain, around the royal châteaux, instead of desiring what I was supposed to be on the lookout for, it has been you, your sweet and lovely face, a sight of your dress among the trees, or on some terrace, that I have longed for and invoked and coveted! Last of all the proof lies in this fact: that you had only to take one step toward me to make me forget prudence, duty, terror, everything! And here I am in the Louvre, which I ought to shun. I reply to all your questions. I feel that all this is hazardous and insane, nevertheless I do it. Have I given you proof enough now, Diane?" "Oh, yes, Gabriel, yes," said Diane, hastily, trembling with excitement and emotion. "Ah, would to Heaven that I had been wiser," continued Gabriel, "and had adhered to my former resolution to see you no more, to flee from you if you summoned me, and to keep silence if you questioned me! That would have been much better for both of us, Diane, believe me. I knew what I was doing. I preferred to cause you anxiety rather than real grief. Oh, my God! why am I without power to withstand your voice and your look?" Diane began to understand that she had really been wrong in her desire to be relieved from her mortal uncertainty. Every subject of conversation was painful for them, every question concealed a danger. Between these two beings whom God had created for happiness perhaps, there was no possibility of aught but doubt and peril and misery, thanks to the machinations of man. But since Diane had thus challenged fate, she had no desire to avoid it; quite the contrary. She would go to the bottom of the abyss to which her anxiety had exposed her, though she were to find there nought but despair and death. After a thoughtful silence, she began thus:-- "I was desirous to see you, Gabriel, for two reasons; "I had an explanation to make to you in the first instance, as well as one to ask at your hands." "Speak, Diane," replied Gabriel. "Lay bare my heart, and rend it at your will. It is yours." "In the first place, Gabriel, I felt that I must let you know why, after I received your message, I did not at once assume the veil you sent back to me, and enter some convent immediately, as I expressed my intention of doing in our last sad interview at Calais." "Have I reproached you in the least as to that, Diane?" returned Gabriel. "I told André to say to you that I gave you back your promise, and those were no mere empty words on my part; I meant what I said." "I also mean to become a nun, Gabriel, and be sure that I have simply postponed carrying out my resolve." "But why, Diane,--why renounce the world in which you were made to shine?"