She did not waver.

"To marry Risler was to bring myself nearer to you. I said to myself:
'I could not be his wife. Very well, I will be his sister. At all
events, in that way it will still be allowable for me to love him, and we
shall not pass our whole lives as strangers.' Alas! those are the
innocent dreams a girl has at twenty, dreams of which she very soon
learns the impossibility. I could not love you as a sister, Frantz; I
could not forget you, either; my marriage prevented that. With another
husband I might perhaps have succeeded, but with Risler it was terrible.
He was forever talking about you and your success and your future--Frantz
said this; Frantz did that--He loves you so well, poor fellow! And then
the most cruel thing to me is that your brother looks like you. There is
a sort of family resemblance in your features, in your gait, in your
voices especially, for I have often closed my eyes under his caresses,
saying to myself, 'It is he, it is Frantz.' When I saw that that wicked
thought was becoming a source of torment to me, something that I could
not escape, I tried to find distraction, I consented to listen to this
Georges, who had been pestering me for a long time, to transform my life
to one of noise and excitement. But I swear to you, Frantz, that in that
whirlpool of pleasure into which I then plunged, I never have ceased to
think of you, and if any one had a right to come here and call me to
account for my conduct, you certainly are not the one, for you,
unintentionally, have made me what I am."

She paused. Frantz dared not raise his eyes to her face. For a moment
past she had seemed to him too lovely, too alluring. She was his
brother's wife!

Nor did he dare speak. The unfortunate youth felt that the old passion