She withdrew her hand from his, and leaned her brow thoughtfully upon it.
"Can you not feel—can you not understand, mon ami," she said calmly, "that now such a thing—such a thought, is impossible to me?"
"Impossible?"
"Yes, impossible. Can you not see that now my heart, my soul, my thought—my very life, must belong to another? It could not be different."
"Would you have me believe that you can wed your young existence to the dead?" he exclaimed with something like horror. Her glance was sunk deep in the embankment of flowers before her.
"My husband has never been so living to me as he is now," she replied with a faint smile of commiseration for Sépincourt's fatuity. "Every object that surrounds me speaks to me of him. I look yonder across the marais, and I see him coming toward me, tired and toil-stained from the hunt. I see him again sitting in this chair or in that one. I hear his familiar voice, his footsteps upon the galleries. We walk once more together beneath the magnolias; and at night in dreams I feel that he is there, there, near me. How could it be different! Ah! I have memories, memories to crowd and fill my life, if I live a hundred years!"
Sépincourt was wondering why she did not take the sword down from her altar and thrust it through his body here and there. The effect would have been infinitely more agreeable than her words, penetrating his soul like fire. He arose confused, enraged with pain.
"Then, Madame," he stammered, "there is nothing left for me but to take my leave. I bid you adieu."
"Do not be offended, mon ami," she said kindly, holding out her hand. "You are going to Paris, I suppose?"
"What does it matter," he exclaimed desperately, "where I go?"