The letter did not lack dignity, for it is in the nature of women to
preserve some virtues even when committing that horrible sin.--The
story is now that my wife went abroad in a ship that was wrecked; she
is supposed to be dead. I have lived alone for seven years!--Enough
for this evening, Maurice. We will talk of my situation when I have
grown used to the idea of speaking of it to you. When we suffer from a
chronic disease, it needs time to become accustomed to improvement.
That improvement often seems to be merely another aspect of the
complaint.'

"I went to bed greatly agitated; for the mystery, far from being
explained, seemed to me more obscure than ever. I foresaw some strange
drama indeed, for I understood that there could be no vulgar
difference between the woman that Count could choose and such a
character as his. The events which had driven the Countess to leave a
man so noble, so amiable, so perfect, so loving, so worthy to be
loved, must have been singular, to say the least. M. de Grandville's
remark had been like a torch flung into the caverns over which I had
so long been walking; and though the flame lighted them but dimly, my
eyes could perceive their wide extent! I could imagine the Count's
sufferings without knowing their depths or their bitterness. That
sallow face, those parched temples, those overwhelming studies, those
moments of absentmindedness, the smallest details of the life of this
married bachelor, all stood out in luminous relief during the hour of
mental questioning, which is, as it were, the twilight before sleep,
and to which any man would have given himself up, as I did.

"Oh! how I loved my poor master! He seemed to me sublime. I read a
poem of melancholy, I saw perpetual activity in the heart I had
accused of being torpid. Must not supreme grief always come at last to