"Why, where are we going, Thérèse? Aren't we comfortable here?"
She was obliged to explain, for he insisted.
"My child," said Thérèse, "you are to remain here; the doctors say that you need another week or two of perfect quiet before you can travel at all without danger of a relapse. I am going back to France, as I have finished my work at Genoa, and I do not intend, at present, to visit other parts of Italy."
"Very good, Thérèse, you are free; but if you choose to return to France, I am at liberty to make the same choice. Can't you wait a week for me? I am sure that I shall need no more than that to be in condition to travel."
He was so sincere in his forgetfulness of the wrong he had done her, and he was so like a child at that moment, that Thérèse had to force back the tears that came to her eyes at the memory of that species of adoption, formerly so sweet, which she was forced to resign.
She began involuntarily to use the familiar form of address, and said to him, with the utmost gentleness and delicacy, that they must part for some time.
"Why part, in Heaven's name?" cried Laurent; "do we no longer love each other?"
"That would be impossible," she replied; "we shall always be friends; but we have mutually caused each other a great deal of suffering, and your health could not endure any more of it. We will wait until time enough has elapsed for everything to be forgotten."
"But I have forgotten!" cried Laurent, with an earnestness that was touching because it was so absolutely ingenuous. "I remember none of the wrong you did me! You were always an angel to me, and, being an angel, you cannot harbor resentment. You must forgive me for everything, and take me away with you, Thérèse! If you leave me here, I shall die of ennui!"
And as Thérèse displayed a firmness that he did not expect, he lost his temper and told her that she did very wrong to feign a severity to which her whole conduct gave the lie.