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but really they are hesitating and waiting. Even as human voices require the striking of a chord before harmonising, so do these inner voices wait for our unhappy friend to speak a word that shall unconsciously give the note of the thoughts that will comfort and soothe him.

      Rose whispered:

      "Oh, you do not speak! Your silence frightens me!"

      "Don't be afraid of it, dearest. Silence nearly always means that the words which will follow will be just." And, summoning all my tenderness, I added, "You see, I am trying to bind all my most diverse thoughts together. I should like to hand them to you as I would a bunch of flowers, for you to choose the one that will restore your peace of mind. I am afraid of hurting you, I understand your wound so well."

      The girl presses against my breast; and our kisses meet in a spontaneous outburst of affection....

      Sadly I think of all those who are weeping, weeping over like sorrows. There are other wounded hearts bleeding in mine; my memory echoes with the mournful prayers of the poor deluded victims of love. Alas, we are all subject to the cruel and exquisite law that absorbs the firmest wills in its indifferent strength!

      I feel Roseline's hands quivering under my fingers, but I dare not speak. The silence of the fields and the solemn darkness awe me. Do not our least words seem to be written on the velvet of the night in precious and lasting letters?…

      3

      At last, I wiped away her tears and long and gently tried to rally her. But, suddenly drawing herself up, Rose cried:

      "I don't understand you, I no longer understand you! What you are saying is just so much more silence and I wait for your judgment in vain! You have, you must have, an opinion on what I have done. The reason why I hesitated so long to confess my fault was because I knew instinctively that you would blame me; and now I feel you so far from me.... Please judge me, be angry with me: it will be easier for you to forgive me afterwards!…"

      I do not know why this blind insistence offended me. Until then I had remained calm; but at her words there burst from the depths of my being the voice of instinct, that voice which I had tried to stifle, almost unconsciously, by force of habit and training.... Oh, that blatant, piercing voice! It seemed to me to rend the darkness, to scoff at my heart and my sweet reasonableness! It was as though I saw all my kindly dreams of tolerance and indulgence fly into a thousand splinters! Never had I so clearly realised their brittleness. My anger was all the greater because it was still trammelled by fragments of my reason.

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