And, hiding her forehead on the shoulder of her younger sister, she
sobbed.

Then, when she had grown a little calmer, when the heaving of her breast
had subsided, she commenced to unbosom herself, as if to cast forth this
secret from herself, to empty this sorrow of hers into a sympathetic
heart.

Thereupon, holding each other's hands tightly clasped, the two women went
over to a sofa in a dark corner of the room, into which they sank, and
the younger sister, passing her arm over the elder one's neck, and
drawing her close to her heart, listened.

"Oh! I know that there was no excuse for me; I do not understand myself,
and since that day I feel as if I were mad. Be careful, my child, about
yourself--be careful! If you only knew how weak we are, how quickly
we yield, and fall. It takes so little, so little, so little, a moment of
tenderness, one of those sudden fits of melancholy which come over you,
one of those longings to open, your arms, to love, to cherish something,
which we all have at certain moments.

"You know my husband, and you know how fond I am of him; but he is mature
and sensible, and cannot even comprehend the tender vibrations of a
woman's heart. He is always the same, always good, always smiling, always
kind, always perfect. Oh! how I sometimes have wished that he would clasp
me roughly in his arms, that he would embrace me with those slow, sweet
kisses which make two beings intermingle, which are like mute
confidences! How I have wished that he were foolish, even weak, so that
he should have need of me, of my caresses, of my tears!