The next questions are, when did they become lovers, and how did Musset discover their intimacy? It is quite certain that he suspected it, and that he made Pagello confess his love for George Sand.[20] A most extraordinary scene then took place between the three of them, according to George Sand's own account. "Adieu, then," she wrote to Musset, later on, "adieu to the fine poem of our sacred friendship and of that ideal bond formed between the three of us, when you dragged from him the confession of his love for me and when he vowed to you that he would make me happy. Oh, that night of enthusiasm, when, in spite of us, you joined our hands, saying: `You love each other and yet you love me, for you have saved me, body and soul." Thus, then, Musset had solemnly abjured his love for George Sand, he had engaged his mistress of the night before to a new lover, and was from henceforth to be their best friend. Such was the ideal bond, such the sacred friendship! This may be considered the romantic escapade.

[20] On one of George Sand's unpublished letters to Buloz the following lines are written in the handwriting of Buloz:

"In the morning on getting up he discovered, in an adjoining room, a tea-table still set, but with only one cup.

"`Did you have tea yesterday evening?'

"`Yes,' answered George Sand, `I had tea with the doctor.'

"`Ah, how is it that there is only one cup?'

"`The other has been taken away.'

"`No, nothing has been taken away. You drank out of the same cup.'