She, standing before him, waited.

It was one of those spring days, full of heat and light, to which the
moisture of recent rains imparts a strange softness and melancholy. The
air was warm, perfumed by fresh flowers which, on that first day of heat,
gave forth their fragrance eagerly, like violets hidden in a muff.
Through its long, open windows the room in which they were inhaled all
those intoxicating odors. Outside, they could hear the Sunday organs,
distant shouts on the river, and nearer at hand, in the garden, Madame
Dobson's amorous, languishing voice, sighing:

"On dit que tu te maries;
Tu sais que j'en puis mouri-i-i-r!"

"Yes, Frantz, I have always loved you," said Sidonie. "That love which
I renounced long ago because I was a young girl--and young girls do not
know what they are doing--that love nothing has ever succeeded in
destroying or lessening. When I learned that Desiree also loved you,
the unfortunate, penniless child, in a great outburst of generosity I
determined to assure her happiness for life by sacrificing my own, and I
at once turned you away, so that you should go to her. Ah! as soon as
you had gone, I realized that the sacrifice was beyond my strength. Poor
little Desiree! How I cursed her in the bottom of my heart! Will you
believe it? Since that time I have avoided seeing her, meeting her. The
sight of her caused me too much pain."

"But if you loved me," asked Frantz, in a low voice, "if you loved me,
why did you marry my brother?"