Page:A Virgin Heart.pdf/204

200 ish fancies, sometimes his brows contracted and he would feel a mixture of anxiety and anger.

Rose was also reading:

"... but I have been very ill since my arrival here. Some fever, due, it may be, to the delicious excitement of my heart. A great depression has been the result and I now feel a most disquieting lassitude. Alas! the conclusion is sad: we must put off our marriage. It is an infinite pain to me to write this; but I ask myself when it will be possible? Will it ever be possible? No, I won't ask that. It would be terrible. I love you so much! What a happiness it is to walk again with you, in fancy, through the wood at Robinvast! If I was too audacious, you will pardon me, won't you, because of the violence of my love...."

There was a lot more in this style, and a less inexperienced woman than Rose would have felt the artificiality of this amorous eloquence. Not a word of it, certainly, came from the heart. M. Hervart, who was not cruel, had ﬁrst laid down the principle of his illness and his intention was to draw from it, graduating the deceptions, all its logical conclusions. If