"Many men would be proud to share it—this is not said from pride—for this love is cast at your feet with as much humility as fear. If you are free, if you can consecrate, or rather you will allow a whole life to be consecrated to you, say one word, and to-morrow you shall know who wrote this letter.
"Such is the confidence reposed in you, that you will be blindly believed. Nothing could be more easy for you than to deceive a heart entirely occupied with you; you might scorn this love with impunity and treat it as a plaything with the premeditation to break it speedily; you might lightly, carelessly give a mortal blow to a heart too deeply enamoured. This is said because you are known to be good and generous—because it is not too much to rely on your heart and candour for a frank reply. Be that reply what it may, it will be received with gratitude. Your sincerity will at least assuage the bitterness of rejection. This unpropitious love will return to the mystery and obscurity whence it should never have emerged. Although it be not shared, it will be none the less fervent and eternal: you may be insensible to it, but you cannot prevent its existence.
"P.S. Reply 'poste-restante,' to Paris to Madame Derval."
Whether he was in a train of romantic and melancholy ideas, whether he believed in the sincerity of this letter, or whether, in fact, resolved on refusing the offer of this heart, he thus avoided the ridicule of being the dupe of some "fool-born jest," M. de Morville, replied seriously to this proposition, and wrote this, poste-restante, to the address of Madame Derval.
"I would a thousand times prefer being the victim of a jest to risking a frivolous reply to the expression of a sentiment for which a right-minded man should always shew himself grateful. If there is one thing I pretend to it is frankness, and I have never committed a base or mean action, I have never considered as vain and trifling the engagements of two hearts which are exchanged—engagements in which a woman almost always places her whole happiness in the honour, her future at the mercy, of a man,—engagements in which the woman risks all, the man nothing. I will therefore reply, No, my heart is not free; I love, and love without hope.
"Shall I be understood, when I say that in thus replying, I believe I fully appreciate the sentiment which is expressed towards me, and by which I am as much touched as honoured?
"Admitting the reality of the sentiment which is expressed, I am absolved from any presumption by this well-known truth, To be loved does not prove that we deserve to be loved. But as for myself I have always thought that those who loved deserved always as much respect as admiration.
"LEON DE MORVILLE."
The next day De Morville received this reply by post:—
"Your noble and generous heart has been justly appreciated—your letter has caused tears to flow, but they fell without bitterness. Your excessive delicacy would, had it been possible, have increased the blind passion with which you have inspired me. Blind passion!—ah!—no—no, never was a love more deeply reflected, more meditated, more rational—for you are capable and worthy of responding to all the exactions of a love the most pure, the most elevated.