[Sidebar:] She is nearly driving me mad, this child... this cunning creature... How could she make me believe she knew nothing?? Was it her conscience that would not let her accept my love? And why??!

So..!! This, then, is the truth... So now I have learned the contents of the little head... I have learned that my child was no child; she understood everything — more than I, and more than anyone. So... my little girl is in love!! Oh, the little one... She loved, with all her heart, one man, and did not wait for him to return it; she gave him her heart and her feelings without condition or restraint, and then imposed upon herself that mask of supposed innocent childhood... to keep every man away from her, and to remain pure and serene, accepting love or passion from no one... even were he her man's own brother, even were he her childhood companion... My thoughts were in tumult, my heart pounding hard. I felt that I loved her at that moment more than at any time before — for now, in my eyes, she is complete... When she lifted her head from the sand, that sand was mixed with her tears and covered her face... I took her braid in my hand, raised it to my lips, and kissed it: — He is blind of heart, that madman who trades this angel for a French girl. — He is not blind of heart; perhaps he knew nothing at all. It is I who am blind of heart, for love shut my eyes and I did not see what I was to him. I loved him so much that I fancied he returned my feeling; but in truth I was nothing

to him but a "naughty" child who hits the boys and throws stones at the sparrows and walks barefoot on the sand all summer long. I was to him only a child he found sweet, whose play amused him; so he played with her, never knowing that he was playing with her heart and feeding her love by it... And after he went away, I went out of his mind; but he did not go out of mine... he was not absent from my heart for a single moment. Yet I dared not ask after him, for fear someone should notice something in me; I

contented myself with the news that came by chance from your mother or from you, and showed no outward interest in it... as though it did not concern me. What an actress... How could she deceive me all this time with her innocence? I love her more than at any moment before... for now she is, to me, a woman in love who understands the meaning of love and values the feelings of lovers... not a child who mocks me and my heart.

September 20 My brother returns in fifteen days, and yesterday I

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