“How could it be otherwise?” he said. “I loved and believed myself beloved. But it proved to be—nothing, alas!”
“Sometimes one only imagines things,” said Rouletabille, keeping his hand on the door.
“Oh, yes,” said the other, growing more and more melancholy. “So a man suffers. He is his own tormentor; he himself makes the wheel on which, like his own executioner, he binds himself.”
“It is not necessary, monsieur; it is not necessary,” counseled the reporter.
“Listen,” implored Boris in a voice that showed tears were not far away. “You are still a child, but still you can see things. Do you believe Natacha loves me?”
“I am sure of it, Monsieur Boris; I am sure of it.”
“I am sure of it, too. But I don’t know what to think now. She has let me go, without trying to detain me, without a word of hope.”
“And where are you going like that?”
“I am returning to the Orel country, where I first saw her.”
“That is good, very good, Monsieur Boris. At least there you are sure to see her again. She goes there every year with her parents for a few weeks. It is a detail you haven’t overlooked, doubtless.”