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"I loved him.
"I could not hear this state of things any longer. Truth, however painful, was preferable to this dreadful suspense.
"I called on Briancourt. I found his studio shut. I went to his house. He had not been at home for two days. The servants did not know where he was. They thought that he had, perhaps, gone to his father's in Italy.
"Disconsolate, I roamed about the streets, and soon I found myself again before Teleny's house. The door downstairs was still open. I stole by the porter's lodge, frightened lest I might be stopped and told that my friend was not at home. No one, however, noticed me. I crept upstairs, shivering, nerveless, sick. I put the key in the lock, the door yielded noiselessly as it had done a few nights before. I went in.
"Then I asked myself what I was to do next, and I almost turned on my heels and ran off.
"As I stood there wavering, I thought I heard a faint moan.
