disappearance? You had been married a short time. He called on you
often. One fine day people learned that he had quitted Paris. This is
the place where he had come in winter. People tried to find a reason for
his sudden retreat; some thought he had run away under the influence of
sorrow or humiliation, or from fear that the world might see him grow
old. He was afraid of old age more than of anything else. For seven
years he has lived in retirement from society; he has not gone out of the
castle once. He receives at the Guerric two or three old men who were
his companions in youth. This gate is opened for them only. Since his
retirement no one has seen him; no one ever will see him. He shows the
same care to conceal himself that he had formerly to show himself. He
has not suffered from his decline. He exists in a sort of living death."

And Therese, recalling the amiable old man who had wished to finish
gloriously with her his life of gallantry, turned her head and looked at
the Guerric lifting its four towers above the gray summits of oaks.

On their return she said she had a headache and that she would not take
dinner. She locked herself in her room and drew from her jewel casket
the lamentable letter. She read over the last page.

"The thought that you belong to another burns me. And then, I did not
wish that man to be the one."

It was a fixed idea. He had written three times on the same leaf these
words: "I did not wish that man to be the one."

She, too, had only one idea: not to lose him. Not to lose him, she would
have said anything, she would have done anything. She went to her table
and wrote, under the spur of a tender, and plaintive violence, a letter