"Florence, you must be exaggerating. Such self-restraint is an impossibility."
"I promised to tell you the truth, and I am telling it. We have never spoken a word to each other during these four years. When any important matter or any question affecting our interests was to be decided, we wrote to each other; that is all. I must also admit that we invented a way to communicate with each other through the wall between our rooms. It was a very brief telegraphic code, however. Only extensive enough to permit us to say to each other, 'Good night, Michel'—'Good night, Florence;' and in the morning, 'Good morning, Michel'—'Good morning, Florence;' or, 'It is time to start,' or now and then: 'Courage, Michel'—'Courage, Florence; let us think of paradise, and endure purgatory as cheerfully as possible!' But even this mode of correspondence had to be strictly tabooed now and then; for would you believe it? Michel sometimes wasted so much time in tapping upon the wall with the handle of his pocket-knife that I was obliged to silence the hot-headed creature in the most peremptory manner."
"And did this meagre correspondence satisfy you?"
"Perfectly. Did we not have a life in common, in spite of the wall that separated us? Were not our minds concentrated upon the same aim, and was not our pursuance of this aim exactly the same thing as always thinking of each other? Besides, we saw each other every morning and evening. As we were not lovers, that sufficed. If we had been, a single look might have been enough to destroy all our good resolutions. Well, a fortnight ago, our object was accomplished. In four years we had accumulated forty-two thousand eight hundred francs! We might have 'retired,' as merchants say, several months earlier; but we said, or, rather, we wrote to each other, 'It is not well for persons to crave any more than is required to provide them with the necessaries of life; still, we ought to have enough to supply the needs of any poor and hungry stranger who may knock at our door. Nothing gives greater peace to the soul than the consciousness of having always been kind and humane.' This being the case, we prolonged our purgatory a little. And now, Valentine, confess that there is nothing like well-directed indolence to imbue persons with energy, courage, and virtue."
"Farewell, Florence," said Madame d'Infreville, in a voice husky with tears, and throwing herself in her friend's arms, "farewell for ever!"
"What do you mean, Valentine?"
"A vague hope impelled me to come here,—a foolish, senseless hope. Once more, farewell! Be happy with Michel. Heaven created you for each other, and your happiness has been nobly earned."
The garden gate closed noisily.
"Madame, madame," cried the old nurse, hastening towards them with an unsealed letter, which she handed to Valentine, "the gentleman that remained in the carriage told me to give this to you at once. He came from over there," added the old woman, pointing to the same clump of shrubbery in which Valentine had fancied that she heard a suspicious sound, some time before.
Florence watched her friend with great surprise, as Valentine opened the missive, which contained another note, and read the following words, hastily scrawled in pencil: