Then, among the roses at Lavedan,
in your dear company, Roxalanne, it seemed that some of the good,
some of the sweetness, some of the purity about you were infused
anew into my heart. I became young again, and I seemed oddly
cleansed. In that hour of my rejuvenation I loved you, Roxalanne."
Her face had been raised to mine as I spoke. There came now a
flutter of the eyelids, a curious smile about the lips. Then her
head drooped again and was laid against my breast; a sigh escaped
her, and she began to weep softly.
"Nay, Roxalanne, do not fret. Come, child, it is not your way to
be weak."
"I have betrayed you!" she moaned. "I am sending you to your
death!"
"I understand, I understand," I answered, smoothing her brown
hair.
"Not quite, monsieur. I loved you so, monsieur, that you can have
no thought of how I suffered that morning when Mademoiselle de
Marsac came to Lavedan.
"At first it was but the pain of thinking that - that I was about to
lose you; that you were to go out of my life, and that I should see
you no more - you whom I had enshrined so in my heart.
"I called myself a little fool that morning for having dreamed that
you had come to care for me; my vanity I thought had deluded me
into imagining that your manner towards me had a tenderness that
spoke of affection. I was bitter with myself, and I suffered oh,
so much! Then later, when I was in the rose garden, you came to me.
"You remember how you seized me, and how by your manner you showed
me that it was not vanity alone had misled me.
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