She had found
the key she had been looking for and her desk was open. I returned and
sat down near the fire. "Listen to me," I said without daring to look at
her; "I have been so culpable in my treatment of you that I ought to wait
and suffer without a word of complaint. The change which has taken place
in you has thrown me into such despair that I have not been able to
refrain from asking you the cause; but to-day I ask nothing more. Does it
cost you an effort to depart? Tell me, and if so, I am resigned."
"Let us go, let us go!" she replied.
"As you please, but be frank; whatever blow I may receive, I ought not to
ask whence it comes; I should submit without a murmur. But if I lose you,
do not speak to me of hope, for God knows I will not survive the loss."
She turned on me like a flash.
"Speak to me of your love," she said, "not of your grief."
"Very well, I love you more than life. Beside my love, my grief is but a
dream. Come with me to the end of the world, I will die or I will live
with you."
With these words, I advanced toward her; she turned pale and recoiled.
She made a vain effort to force a smile on her contracted lips, and
sitting down before her desk she said:
"One moment; I have some papers here I want to burn."
She showed me the letters from N-----, tore them up and threw them into
the fire; she then took out other papers which she reread and then spread
out on the table.
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