She placed on his lips a pledge in a kiss.

"I swear to you I never loved any one but you. Oh, no, it is not
caresses that have preserved the few charms which I am happy to have in
order to offer them to you. I love you! I love you!"

But he still remembered the letter dropped in the post-box, and the
unknown person met at the station.

"If you loved me truly, you would love only me."

She rose, indignant:

"Then you believe I love another? What you are saying is monstrous. Is
that what you think of me? And you say you love me! I pity you, because
you are insane."

"True, I am insane."

She, kneeling, with the supple palms of her hands enveloped his temples
and his cheeks. He said again that he was mad to be anxious about a
chance and commonplace meeting. She forced him to believe her, or,
rather, to forget. He no longer saw or knew anything. His vanished
bitterness and anger left him nothing but the harsh desire to forget
everything, to make her forget everything.

She asked him why he was sad.

"You were happy a moment ago. Why are you not happy now?"