I passed a sleepless and unhappy night.
The next day I was weak enough to avoid my aunt and Hélène; I mounted my horse early in the morning, and went to one of my farms, where I spent the whole day.
I returned home late in the evening, and, pretending to be excessively tired, I did not appear in the salon.
On entering my room, I saw on my study-table these words in Hélène's handwriting (they were in a book which she had returned me): "My mother has told me all. I will be at the pavilion of the pyramid to-morrow morning at nine o'clock. Meet me there. Ah, how much you must have suffered!"
Though in my state of mind such an interview would be painful and distasteful, I could not very well avoid it, therefore I resolved to go.
CHAPTER IX
THE PAVILION
The pavilion where I was to meet Hélène was situated in the depths of the forest; to get there I had to traverse long, dismal paths, all choked up with dead leaves. The morning mist was so heavy and thick that I could hardly see ten steps before me, though it was nine o'clock. My meditations of the night before had confirmed me in my doubt and my decision. Having once admitted that Hélène's conduct was the result of base cupidity, it became, unhappily, only too easy to misinterpret all her actions. Thus the involuntary avowal that had escaped her lips, that chaste cry of love which had long been withheld and hidden in her tender heart, became in my eyes nothing more than a shameless enticement.
What shall I say? That, as I walked along to the pavilion, my ideas were a frightful mixture of selfishness, wounded pride, and cruel resolutions, also of bitter regret to have dispelled so fair an illusion, to have lost all hope of consoling myself some day by the remembrance of a pure and disinterested first love. What is horrible and ridiculous to admit is, that never for a moment did the thought that I might be mistaken ever enter my mind; that, having admitted the possibility of evil, I should also be willing to admit the chances of good; that, after all, taking no account of Hélène's character and the nobility of her mind, there were a thousand circumstances, a thousand reasons, which would prove beyond a doubt that her love was pure and without a selfish thought; and, then, my fortune being part of my condition, was not Hélène obliged to take me as she found me, and, finding me rich, love me, rich though I was?
But, no, my one idea was so fixed in my mind, and possessed me with such brutal ferocity, that I never attempted to find a single excuse in favour of the woman I so cruelly suspected.