Ah! how delicious was that moment when I found that Nicette was worthy of all my love! I hastened to tell her, in my turn, all that had happened to me, all that I had felt when I believed that she was Raymond’s mistress. She wept with joy and love as she listened; she gazed into my face, took my hands, and held them to her heart.
“So you did love me,” she said, “and you love me still! Ah! how happy I am!”
The story of my marriage and of Pélagie’s conduct caused her the greatest surprise; she could not conceive how my wife could fail to love me. Dear Nicette! But for that miserable Raymond, I should still have been free! but the ties which bound me to Pélagie were broken by nature, if not by man.
“What!” she said; “are you not going back to your wife?”
“Never. That resolution was irrevocable before I found you; it can bring no blame upon you.”
“And you really want me to stay with you?”
“Do I want you to! Could I live without you now?”
“Oh! how happy I am going to be, monsieur!”
“Dear Nicette! no more monsieur, no more formal address! I am your friend, your lover, and you are the whole world to me! Call me Eugène, your Eugène!”
The evening passed away in this blissful conversation.