"Do you not know, then, that we women love the unhappy before all? Our mission upon earth is to offer consolation."
"Madam, I implore you, do not let me leave you thus. I should carry away in my heart a grief which nothing could cure."
"I was wrong to come," she murmured, mournfully.
"Oh! Say not so, as you have perchance saved my life."
"Farewell, Don Louis," she replied, with an accent of ineffable gentleness; "we must part. Whatever may occur, remember that you have a devoted friend—a sister."
"A sister!" he remarked, bitterly, "be it so. If that is your wish; madam, I do not insist."
"Take this ring, as you wish absolutely to know who I am. My name is engraved upon it, but promise me not to read it for three days."
"I swear it," he replied, holding out his hand in the darkness.
A hand seized on his, pressed it gently, left a ring in it; and then he heard a slight rustling of silk, and a soft voice murmured farewell for the last time. The count heard a door close, and that was all. In a second, the door which had granted him admission to the house opened again. Don Louis wrapped himself in his cloak, and went out, a prey to considerable agitation. He reached his abode at full speed; from a distance he perceived a man standing before his gateway. The count, through a secret presentiment he could not explain, hurried onward.
"Valentine!" he suddenly exclaimed, with marks of amazement.