"That letter; then it was you who received it?"
"Alas! yes," said Mary, "and painful as it was to me, it is most fortunate that I did so."
"Did you read it through?" asked Michel.
"Yes," said the young girl, lowering her eyes before the supplicating glance with which he enfolded her as he asked the question. "Yes, I read it--all; and it is because I did so, dear friend, that I wished to speak to you before you see my sister again."
"But, Mary, do you not see that that letter is truth itself from the first line to the last, and that if I love Bertha at all it can only be as a sister?"
"No, no," cried Mary; "I only know that my future would be horrible if I caused unhappiness to my poor sister whom I love so well."
"But," said Michel, "what do you ask of me?"
"I ask you," replied Mary, clasping her hands, "to sacrifice a feeling which has not had time to strike deep roots into your heart; I ask you to forget a fancy nothing justifies, to renounce an attachment which can have no good result for you and must be fatal to all three of us."
"Ask my life, Mary; I can kill myself, or let myself be killed,--nothing is easier; but to ask me not to love you! Good God! what would my poor heart be if deprived of its love for you?"
"And yet it must be so, dear Michel," said Mary, in her winning voice; "for never--no never--will you obtain from me a word of encouragement for the love you speak of in that letter. I have sworn it."