What followed that fatal night you know as well as I; but what you can
not know, what you can not suspect, is what I have suffered since our
separation.

I heard that your father had taken you away with him, but I felt sure
that you could not live away from me for long, and when I met you in the
Champs-Elysees, I was a little upset, but by no means surprised.

Then began that series of days; each of them brought me a fresh insult
from you. I received them all with a kind of joy, for, besides proving
to me that you still loved me, it seemed to me as if the more you
persecuted me the more I should be raised in your eyes when you came to
know the truth.

Do not wonder at my joy in martyrdom, Armand; your love for me had
opened my heart to noble enthusiasm.

Still, I was not so strong as that quite at once.

Between the time of the sacrifice made for you and the time of your
return a long while elapsed, during which I was obliged to have recourse
to physical means in order not to go mad, and in order to be blinded and
deafened in the whirl of life into which I flung myself. Prudence
has told you (has she not?) how I went to all the fetes and balls and
orgies. I had a sort of hope that I should kill myself by all these
excesses, and I think it will not be long before this hope is realized.
My health naturally got worse and worse, and when I sent Mme. Duvernoy
to ask you for pity I was utterly worn out, body and soul.