When Calyste and I were fairly alone in the travelling carriage,
we felt rather foolish in each other's company, understanding the
importance of the first word, the first look; and we both,
bewildered by the solemnity, looked out of our respective windows.
It became so ridiculous that when we reached the barrier monsieur
began, in a rather troubled tone of voice, a set discourse,
prepared, no doubt, like other improvisations, to which I listened
with a beating heart, and which I take the liberty of here
abridging.

"My dear Sabine," he said, "I want you to be happy, and, above
all, do I wish you to be happy in your own way. Therefore, in the
situation in which we are, instead of deceiving ourselves mutually
about our characters and our feelings by noble compliances, let us
endeavor to be to each other at once what we should be years
hence. Think always that you have a friend and a brother in me, as
I shall feel I have a sister and a friend in you."

Though it was all said with the utmost delicacy, I found nothing
in this first conjugal love-speech which responded to the feelings
in my soul, and I remained pensive after replying that I was
animated by the same sentiments. After this declaration of our
rights to mutual coldness, we talked of weather, relays, and
scenery in the most charming manner,--I with rather a forced
little laugh, he absent-mindedly.

At last, as we were leaving Versailles, I turned to Calyste--whom
I called my dear Calyste, and he called me my dear Sabine--and
asked him plainly to tell me the events which had led him to the
point of death, and to which I was aware that I owed the happiness