‘Because if there is, you know, Louise,’ said Benoit in continuation, ‘Bathilde and I will——’
‘Pray stop, mon ami,’ interrupted Louise; ‘what can I wish to keep from you—you, who know everything, and have been so kind to me? Well, monsieur?’ she added, looking anxiously at Philippe.
‘You know this writing,’ observed Philippe, as he handed her a small packet sealed, and bearing an address.
Louise tremblingly took the parcel and looked at the superscription. As she recognised it, she uttered a low cry of astonishment.
‘It is indeed his,’ she exclaimed, as she bowed her head down, and allowed the parcel to drop in her lap. The next minute her tears were falling quickly after one another upon it.
Bathilde took her hand kindly and pressed it as they watched her grief in silence, which Philippe Glazer was the first to break.
‘I found that in Monsieur de Sainte-Croix’s escritoire,’ he said; ‘one of the few things that Desgrais did not seize upon. I told him it was mine, for I saw what they had discovered made mischief enough, and I did not care to have it extended. It was only to-night I discovered by chance that you were with Benoit and his wife.’
Tearfully, and with hesitating hands, Louise opened the packet, and produced from its folds a document drawn up evidently in legal style, and a small note, which she handed to Philippe.
‘Read it, monsieur,’ she said; ‘I cannot. How long it is since I have seen that writing! I used to wait day after day for some message from him, to show that I was not forgotten—if it had been but one line—until my heart was sick with the vain expectation. And now it has come; and—he is dead.’
The student took the note, and hastily ran his eye over it, before he communicated its contents to the little party. Bathilde and Benoit watched his face anxiously, as they saw it brighten whilst he scanned the writings; it evidently contained no bad news. ‘Joy!’ he exclaimed, as he finished it; ‘joy to all. I think I shall give up medicine and take to farming.’