"Hear me, Cephyse," resumed Jacques, with bitter agony. "It is now that I
first know how mach I love you. My heart is pressed as in a vise at the
thought of leaving you and I shudder to thinly what is to become of you."
Then--drawing his hand across his forehead, Jacques added: "You see we
have been ruined by saying--'To-morrow will never come!'--for to morrow
has come. When I am no longer with you, and you have spent the last penny
of the money gained by the sale of your clothes--unfit for work as you
have become--what will you do next? Must I tell you what you will
do!--you will forget me and--" Then, as if he recoiled from his own
thoughts, Jacques exclaimed, with a burst of rage and despair--"Great
Heaven! if that were to happen, I should dash my brains out against the
stones!"

Cephyse guessed the half-told meaning of Jacques, and throwing her arms
around his neck, she said to him: "I take another lover?--never! I am
like you, for I now first know how much I love you."

"But, my poor Cephyse--how will you live?"

"Well, I shall take courage. I will go back and dwell, with my sister, as
in old times; we will work together, and so earn our bread. I'll never go
out, except to visit you. In a few days your creditor will reflect, that,
as you can't pay him ten thousand francs, he may as well set you free. By
that time I shall have once more acquired the habit of working. You shall
see, you shall see!--and you also will again acquire this habit. We shall
live poor, but content. After all, we have had plenty of amusement for
six month, while so many others have never known pleasure all their
lives. And believe me, my dear Jacques, when I say to you--I shall profit
by this lesson. If you love me, do not feel the least uneasiness; I tell
you, that I would rather die a hundred times, than have another lover."