On the eve of his departure, however, M. Roland came to her, and said that he was about to set out on a prolonged tour through Switzerland and Italy, and that he wished to commit his impressions to paper. Might he send them to her periodically in letter form? Would she keep the letters carefully? And, should he never return, would she edit and have them published for him?

Laughingly Manon conceded to the request. And then she thought no more about it - until the first letter arrived. In due course came the second. Then the third. And they were splendid letters, too. Manon began to wonder. Why did he address them to her? Did this grave-countenanced philosopher take more than merely an impersonal interest in her? Had she at last found the man whom Rousseau had taught her to seek as her mate in life? Had she? Had she? . . .

And then M. Roland returned. She saw him again, and her woman's instinct told her that she had found her mate. She loved him. And in 1778 he told her that he loved her, too. He asked her to marry him.

But almost in the same breath he said that he could only marry her if first she would renounce her family. "Your father, my friend" - and he shook his head wisely - "no, I could never claim relationship with such a man; he's utterly impossible."

And so, indeed, he was. But still, the girl could not renounce her father. Her loyalty revolted. Be patronised, she would not; humiliated for her father's folly. No! Never! She could not accept love on terms like those.

She knew not what to do. And so she aimed at a compromise. She would be his friend, she told M. Roland, a true friend as she had always been, if he would accept her as such. Would he?

And M. Roland, sententious, pedantic, middle-aged, agreed. The platonic idea appealed to him. Indeed, he had already begun to repent his bold wish to marry. He had grown to like his bachelor habits. He did not want to alter them in so revolutionary a school as matrimony. But friendship - yes, he thought it eminently satisfactory.

Still, however, he was merely human. And, next to himself, he loved Manon more dearly than anything in life. Now, under the best of circumstances, it is hard for a man to love a woman and still remain merely her friend. But when the woman is bewitchingly beautiful and persists in addressing passionate love-letters to him, the task becomes appreciably more difficult. M. Roland soon found it quite impossible.

And then the inevitable end drew nearer. In short, his letters too - he had now returned to Amiens - became more tender, less impersonal, until at last he sent her one written when all his restive passions were unbridled.

It threw Manon into a turmoil of doubt, this letter. Her lover had been faithless to his promise. He had robbed her of his friendship, her dearest treasure. What would happen now? Anxiously she wrote to him: I had looked upon the secrets of friendship as compensation for misfortune, revelling in the deliciousness of entire confidence, yet ever careful not to let my feelings carry me too far. In your strong, energetic nature and richly stored mind I discerned my ideal friend, loving as such to regard you, and to be able to add tenderest sympathy. You also succumbed to the same emotions, encouraging the growth of a sentiment against which I struggled. Seeing this, I throw off reserve, ... relying on your generosity for the support of which I stood in need.

"Instead of acting thus, of letting me rest havened in perfect friendship, each day of late you have played upon my weakness, and now you dare to ask the reason of my altered behaviour, of my silence and embarrassment. . . .

"Love, as I look upon it. is a passion terrible in its intensity - a passion that would take possession of my entire being and influence my whole life. Give me back, therefore, your friendship, or fear lest I ask you to see me no more."

And now it was M. Roland's turn to be puzzled. What did the girl want? Once he had asked her to marry him. Instead, she had asked for an intimate friendship. He had taken her at her word. Then she had told him that she loved him. Again he had taken her at her word, and had written to say that he, too, loved. And now she was offended with him. Why? For a moment he was tempted to feel angry, to call himself an old fool for worrying about her. But he could not do this. He loved her. And so he wrote tenderly, expressing sorrow for having pained her.

His letter brought forth this reply: "In the midst of the different objects which surround and oppress me, I see, I feel but you. I hear always: 'i am unhappy!' Is it because I exist, or because I love you? The destruction of the first of these causes is in my power, and would cost me nothing. It would take away with it the other, over which I have no longer any control."

These words moved Roland strangely. His cynicism vanished, a boyish wonder filled him. That a woman should love him thus, him, an ugly, dull old man - he was forty-three, to be precise - it seemed incredible. Did Manon really mean it?

"If I thought that question was unanswered for you to-day," she wrote back, "I should fear it would always be."

Then she did mean it - she did love him! Would she marry him? Timidly, with humble reverence, he now asked the ques-tion. And anxiously he waited for her answer. What it was can be judged from his reply. "You are mine," he wrote. "You have taken the oath. It is irrevocable. Oh, my friend, my tender, faithful, I had need of that yes."

And a splendid wife she made him. No man has had a better. In his life and his career literally she absorbed herself, first as the mistress of his home, then as the mother of his daughter, little Eudora; and then, when his country called upon his services, as his mentor, his adviser, and his friend.

Now, from the very outset the Rolands had been entirely in sympathy with the revolutionary movement. M. Roland, although an aristocrat, had always been in close touch with the working classes; he understood their troubles, he appreciated their desire to free themselves from the burden of oppressive government. And Madame Roland shared, nay, encouraged,