I did not open her letters.

She attempted to force her way into my presence, but in vain; my servants had orders that they dared not ignore." Could this be the Count de Commarin, celebrated for his haughty coldness, for his reserve so full of disdain, who spoke thus, who opened his whole life without restrictions, without reserve?
And to whom?
To a stranger.
But he was in one of those desperate states, allied to madness, when all reflection leaves us, when we must find some outlet for a too powerful emotion.

What mattered to him this secret, so courageously borne for so many years?
He disburdened himself of it, like the poor man, who, weighed down by a too heavy burden, casts it to the earth without caring where it falls, nor how much it may tempt the cupidity of the passers-by.
"Nothing," continued he, "no, nothing, can approach to what I then endured.

My very heartstrings were bound up in that woman.

She was like a part of myself.