It is from Madame Landry!
She writes that she has just seen my name in the Journal des Étrangers (so it still appears?). We were expected here. She and her grand-daughter would be delighted if I would go to see them, delighted, too, if my family would accompany me. She proposed a day, the day after to-morrow.
I don't know where I am. My hand tightens on the letter. Jeannine has taken care not to add a word. My heart swells with bitterness. But why this proceeding?
I shall not go! I cannot go!
Oh, my sister, the only friend left to me, why did I feel a longing to confide in someone, at the sight of your sweet melancholy? I began by joking:
"Halloa, an invitation!"
You searchingly fixed your eyes, full of affection on me.
Drawing a quadrant in the sand with the end of my stick, in a toneless voice, which I force myself to render frivolous, I have told Madeleine this story. But by some subtle feeling of bashfulness, I have not made myself out as ingenuous—I should have blushed for it—as I was. I have told her that directly I saw I had been damaged I had ceased to indulge in a hope grown fond. Our continued correspondence had been a consolation prize. Then when she had tired even of this game I lost interest in it too.
Madeleine has said to me, in her calm voice: