CI.
While my eye glanced over the note, I held the packet with a trembling hand. It seemed to me heavy as my fate. I hastened to pay and dismiss the boatman, who was impatient to be off so as to leave the lake and enter the waters of the Rhone before dark. I only asked him for a piece of candle, to enable me to read my letters; he gave it, and I soon heard the strokes of his oars, as they once more cut through the deep sheet of water. I returned overjoyed to the upper room, to see once more the sacred characters of that angel in the very place where she had first revealed herself to me in all her splendor and in all her love. I felt sure that one of those letters must inform me that she had left Paris and would soon be with me. I sat down on the bundle of straw which I had brought up for my bed, and lighted my candle by means of the priming of my gun. I hastily tore open the cover, and it was only then that I perceived that the seal of the first envelope was black, and that the address was in the handwriting of Dr. Alain. I shuddered as I saw mourning where I had expected to find joy. The other letters slid from my hands onto my knees. I dared not read on for fear of finding—alas! what neither hand, nor eye, nor blood, nor tears, nor earth, nor Heaven could evermore efface—Death!… Though my very soul trembled so as to make the syllables dance before my eyes, I read at last these words:
"Prove yourself a man! Submit yourself to the will of Him whose ways are not our ways; expect her no longer! … Look for her no more on earth, she has returned to heaven, calling on your name…. Thursday at sunrise…. She told me all before she died; … she directed me to send you her last thoughts, which she wrote down till the very instant her hand grew cold while tracing your name…. Love her in Christ, who loved us unto death, and live for your mother!