The curtains were hermetically closed, and for a moment the external
world did not exist for us. Nanine alone had the right to open our door,
but only to bring in our meals and even these we took without getting
up, interrupting them with laughter and gaiety. To that succeeded a
brief sleep, for, disappearing into the depths of our love, we were like
two divers who only come to the surface to take breath.

Nevertheless, I surprised moments of sadness, even tears, in Marguerite;
I asked her the cause of her trouble, and she answered: "Our love is not like other loves, my Armand. You love me as if I had
never belonged to another, and I tremble lest later on, repenting of
your love, and accusing me of my past, you should let me fall back into
that life from which you have taken me. I think that now that I have
tasted of another life, I should die if I went back to the old one. Tell
me that you will never leave me!"

"I swear it!"

At these words she looked at me as if to read in my eyes whether my oath
was sincere; then flung herself into my arms, and, hiding her head in my
bosom, said to me: "You don't know how much I love you!"

One evening, seated on the balcony outside the window, we looked at the
moon which seemed to rise with difficulty out of its bed of clouds,
and we listened to the wind violently rustling the trees; we held each
other's hands, and for a whole quarter of an hour we had not spoken,
when Marguerite said to me: "Winter is at hand. Would you like for us to go abroad?"