"
Gaston de Nueil read the letter, and wrote the following lines:--
"MADAME,--If I could cease to love you, to take the chances of
becoming an ordinary man which you hold out to me, you must admit
that I should thoroughly deserve my fate. No, I shall not do as
you bid me; the oath of fidelity which I swear to you shall only
be absolved by death. Ah! take my life, unless indeed you do not
fear to carry a remorse all through your own----"
When the man returned from his errand, M. de Nueil asked him with whom
he left the note?
"I gave it to Mme. la Vicomtesse herself, sir; she was in her carriage
and just about to start."
"For the town?"
"I don't think so, sir. Mme. la Vicomtesse had post-horses."
"Ah! then she is going away," said the Baron.
"Yes, sir," the man answered.
Gaston de Nueil at once prepared to follow Mme. de Beauseant. She led
the way as far as Geneva, without a suspicion that he followed. And
he? Amid the many thoughts that assailed him during that journey, one
all-absorbing problem filled his mind--"Why did she go away?" Theories
grew thickly on such ground for supposition, and naturally he inclined
to the one that flattered his hopes--"If the Vicomtesse cares for me,
a clever woman would, of course, choose Switzerland, where nobody
knows either of us, in preference to France, where she would find
censorious critics.
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