I hurriedly prepared for my departure, and then wrote a few lines to
Mme. Laroque. I begged her to renounce a decision the effect of which
she could not foresee, and which, for my part, I was determined to have
no share in. I gave her my word--which she knew she could rely on--that
I would never accept my happiness at the cost of her ruin. And I
finished--for the sake of dissuading her from her fantastic project--by
speaking vaguely of a future which might bring me fortune.
At midnight, when everything was silent, I said farewell, a bitter
farewell, to the old tower where I had suffered--and loved--so much. I
slipped into the chateau by a secret door of which I had the key.
Furtively, like a criminal, I passed along the empty and resounding
galleries, guiding myself as I best could in the dark. At last I reached
the _salon_ where I had first seen her. She and her mother had not long
left it, and their recent presence was revealed by a sweet and pleasant
perfume which transported me. I searched, and I touched the basket
where a few moments before she had replaced her embroidery. Alas, my
poor heart!
I fell on my knees before the seat she generally occupies, my forehead
against the marble. I wept. I sobbed like a child. God, how I loved
her!
The last hours of the night I spent in reaching the little town
secretly, and thence I drove to Rennes this morning:
To-morrow evening I shall be in Paris. O poverty, solitude, and
despair, which I had left there, I shall find you again! Last dream of
youth--dream of heaven, farewell!