“I was amused at this childish tenderness, and I even encouraged him.  I was coquettish, as charming as with a man, alternately caressing and severe.  I maddened this child.  It was a game for me and a joyous diversion for his mother and mine.  He was twelve! think of it!  Who would have taken this atom’s passion seriously?  I kissed him as often as he wished; I even wrote him little notes, which were read by our respective mothers; and he answered me by passionate letters, which I have kept.  Judging himself as a man, he thought that our loving intimacy was secret.  We had forgotten that he was a Santeze.

“This lasted for about a year.  One evening in the park he fell at my feet and, as he madly kissed the hem of my dress, he kept repeating:  ’I love you!  I love you!  I love you!  If ever you deceive me, if ever you leave me for another, I’ll do as my father did.’  And he added in a hoarse voice, which gave me a shiver:  ‘You know what he did!’

“I stood there astonished.  He arose, and standing on the tips of his toes in order to reach my ear, for I was taller than he, he pronounced my first name:  ‘Genevieve!’ in such a gentle, sweet, tender tone that I trembled all over.  I stammered:  ‘Let us return! let us return!’ He said no more and followed me; but as we were going up the steps of the porch, he stopped me, saying:  ’You know, if ever you leave me, I’ll kill myself.’

“This time I understood that I had gone too far, and I became quite reserved.  One day, as he was reproaching me for this, I answered:  ’You are now too old for jesting and too young for serious love.  I’ll wait.’

“I thought that this would end the matter.  In the autumn he was sent to a boarding-school.  When he returned the following summer I was engaged to be married.  He understood immediately, and for a week he became so pensive that I was quite anxious.

“On the morning of the ninth day I saw a little paper under my door as I got up.  I seized it, opened it and read:  ’You have deserted me and you know what I said.  It is death to which you have condemned me.  As I do not wish to be found by another than you, come to the park just where I told you last year that I loved you and look in the air.’

“I thought that I should go mad.  I dressed as quickly as I could and ran wildly to the place that he had mentioned.  His little cap was on the ground in the mud.  It had been raining all night.  I raised my eyes and saw something swinging among the leaves, for the wind was blowing a gale.

“I don’t know what I did after that.  I must have screamed at first, then fainted and fallen, and finally have run to the chateau.  The next thing that I remember I was in bed, with my mother sitting beside me.

“I thought that I had dreamed all this in a frightful nightmare.  I stammered:  ‘And what of him, what of him, Gontran?’ There was no answer.  It was true!

“I did not dare see him again, but I asked for a lock of his blond hair.  Here—­here it is!”