"But you, my beloved!" he said, "I am condemning you to a sad
existence!"

"With you," she replied, "I am happy everywhere and always!"

It was not true that she was happy, but it was true that she loved him
and was devoted to him. There was no suffering she would not have
resigned herself to, no sacrifice she would not make, were it for him.

From this moment the prospect of worldly sovereignty, which she thought
she had touched with her hand, escaped her. She had a presentiment of a
melancholy future of solitude, of renunciation, of secret tears; but near
him grief became a fete. One knows with what rapidity life passes with
those who busy themselves without distraction in some profound grief--the
days themselves are long, but the succession of them is rapid and
imperceptible. It was thus that the months and then the seasons
succeeded one another, for Camors and the Marquise, with a monotony that
left hardly any trace on their thoughts. Their daily relations were
marked, on the part of the Count with an invariably cold and distant
courtesy, and very often silence; on the part of the Marquise by an
attentive tenderness and a constrained grief. Every day they rode out on
horseback, both clad in black, sympathetic by their beauty and their
sadness, and surrounded in the country by distant respect. About the
beginning of the ensuing winter Madame de Campvallon experienced a
serious disquietude. Although M. de Camors never complained, it was
evident his health was gradually failing. A dark and almost clayey tint
covered his thin cheeks, and spread nearly to the whites of his eyes.
The Marquise showed some emotion on perceiving it, and persuaded him to
consult a physician. The physician perceived symptoms of chronic