in you!” he cried, seeing her smile sadly and open her mouth as if to speak.  “Say nothing; do not reproach me.  Besides, could you say anything I have not said myself for the last three hours?  Yes, for three hours, I have been here, watching you as you slept, so beautiful! admiring that pure, peaceful brow.  Yes, yes! you have always told me your thoughts, have you not?  I alone am in that soul.  While I look at you, while my eyes can plunge into yours I see all plainly.  Your life is as pure as your glance is clear.  No, there is no secret behind those transparent eyes.”  He rose and kissed their lids.  “Let me avow to you, dearest soul,” he said, “that for the last five years each day has increased my happiness, through the knowledge that you are all mine, and that no natural affection even can take any of your love.  Having no sister, no father, no mother, no companion, I am neither above nor below any living being in your heart; I am alone there.  Clemence, repeat to me those sweet things of the spirit you have so often said to me; do not blame me; comfort me, I am so unhappy.  I have an odious suspicion on my conscience, and you have nothing in your heart to sear it.  My beloved, tell me, could I stay there beside you?  Could two heads united as ours have been lie on the same pillow when one was suffering and the other tranquil?  What are you thinking of?” he cried abruptly, observing that Clemence was anxious, confused, and seemed unable to restrain her tears.

“I am thinking of my mother,” she answered, in a grave voice.  “You will never know, Jules, what I suffer in remembering my mother’s dying farewell, said in a voice sweeter than all music, and in feeling the solemn touch of her icy hand at a moment when you overwhelm me with those assurances of your precious love.”

She raised her husband, strained him to her with a nervous force greater than that of men, and kissed his hair, covering it with tears.

“Ah!  I would be hacked in pieces for you!  Tell me that I make you happy; that I am to you the most beautiful of women—­a thousand women to you.  Oh! you are loved as no other man ever was or will be.  I don’t know the meaning of those words ‘duty,’ ‘virtue.’  Jules, I love you for yourself; I am happy in loving you; I shall love you more and more to my dying day.  I have pride in my love; I feel it is my destiny to have one sole emotion in my life.  What I shall tell you now is dreadful, I know—­but I am glad to have no child; I do not wish for any.  I feel I am more wife than mother.  Well, then, can you fear?  Listen to me, my own beloved, promise to forget, not this hour of mingled tenderness and doubt, but the words of that madman.  Jules, you must.  Promise me not to see him, not to go to him.  I have a deep conviction that if you set one foot in that maze we shall both roll down a precipice where I shall perish—­but with your name upon my lips, your heart in my heart.  Why hold me so high in that heart and yet so low in