Mauprat
than ever be his, unless he becomes civilized enough to marry me. But one might as well expect a miracle. I try to improve him, without daring to hope. However, whether he forces me to kill myself or to turn nun, whether he remains as he is or becomes worse, it will be none the less true that I love him. My dear abbé, you know that it must be costing me something to make this confession; and, when my affection for you brings me as a penitent to your feet and to your bosom, you should not humiliate me by your expressions of surprise and your exorcisms! Consider the matter now; examine, discuss, decide! The evil is—I love him. The symptoms are—I think of none but him, I see none but him; and I could eat no dinner this evening because he had not come back. I find him handsomer than any man in the world. When he says that he loves me, I can see, I can feel that it is true; I feel displeased, and at the same time delighted. M. de la Marche seems insipid and prim since I have known Bernard. Bernard alone seems as proud, as passionate, as bold as myself—and as weak as myself; for he cries like a child when I vex him, and here I am crying, too, as I think of him.'"
"Dear abbé," I said, throwing myself on his neck, "let me embrace you till I have crushed your life out for remembering all this."
"The abbé is drawing the long bow," said Edmée archly.
"What!" I exclaimed, pressing her hands as if I would break them. "You have made me suffer for seven years, and now you repent a few words that console me . . ."
"In any case do not regret the past," she said. "Ah, with you such as you were in those days, we should have
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