love too well a person whom you have seen, and who loves me, to be
able to make the happiness of any other woman; though I know that from
our childhood you and I have been destined for each other by our
friends."

"But she is married, Calyste."

"I shall wait," replied the young man.

"And I, too," said Charlotte, her eyes filling with tears. "You cannot
long love a woman like that, who, they say, has gone off with a
singer--"

"Marry, my dear Charlotte," said Calyste, interrupting her. "With the
fortune your aunt intends to give you, which is enormous for Brittany,
you can choose some better man than I. You could marry a titled man. I
have brought you here, not to tell you what you already knew, but to
entreat you, in the name of our childish friendship, to take this
rupture upon yourself, and say that you have rejected me. Say that you
do not wish to marry a man whose heart is not free; and thus I shall
be spared at least the sense that I have done you public wrong. You do
not know, Charlotte, how heavy a burden life now is to me. I cannot
bear the slightest struggle; I am weakened like a man whose vital
spark is gone, whose soul has left him. If it were not for the grief I
should cause my mother, I would have flung myself before now into the
sea; I have not returned to the rocks at Croisic since the day that
temptation became almost irresistible. Do not speak of this to any
one. Good-bye, Charlotte."

He took the young girl's head and kissed her hair; then he left the