While I was speaking she looked and looked at me. Her great eyes, wide opened, burned with such an ardour that I felt them on me. I wished she would close them or look away, for her gaze embarrassed me. Little by little the colour faded from her cheeks, and when I finished speaking she was deathly pale. As she kept silence, I went on a little annoyed: “You seem to have nothing to say. I assure you Ducal will explain our strained relations to suit his own need. Why do you not answer?” “I am so fatigued,” she murmured; “let me go to my room, please.” “Do you want me to go with you?” “Thank you, I prefer to be alone.” She glided through the room like a shadow. At the door, she turned toward me and said brokenly: “If I was wrong in dismissing your friend, forgive me.” “No, no,” I said, “it is not that.” She disappeared, and I walked up and down, reviewing the whole unpleasant episode and its inevitable consequences. I was annoyed with myself for the unpleasant sensation I felt. It was something akin to that I felt when I asked the innocent young girl of the woods to come to Paris with me alone and she had willingly consented, not comprehending the significance of my invitation. Had I not nevertheless committed the cowardice of injuring the little creature who had entrusted herself to me and claimed protection? And as on that previous occasion, I recalled the bird which I had picked up in my hand, whose life, whose warm life, I felt slip away. Had I not held it too close instead of caressing it? I should have insisted on going with her,--I should not have left her alone. But I stayed there, unnerved and dissatisfied with myself. At dinner she occupied her place without a word of explanation. Any further expression of opinion would have been as the spade of earth that falls on a coffin. Neither she nor I reopened the subject. She retired early, and her absence was a distinct relief to me. The cigar which I was smoking was excellent. Out of doors, the mild evening air announced the spring-time. That night, I have since learned, was one of intense agony for her. How could she still love me? Had I not yet succeeded in destroying love in her? Love is not so dependent on its object as on the nature of the being in whose heart it dwells, and from which it receives its life and force. That of Raymonde was born immortal. A few days later, I met Pierre Ducal. I saw at a glance that he was master of the situation and had decided on his course of conduct. He came toward me, his hand extended. I had an impulse to refuse it--why did I not yield to it? I accepted that offered hand. The treason commenced was by that act consummated.