"I have enough money, thank you," I said. "Good-bye."
"Good-bye," he replied, and, for the first time in all these months, shook me by the hand. "You will write to me?"
I bowed my head in silence, and we parted. I found a cab at the door, and Brunet on the box. I was soon at home again. Home! I felt as if I had no home now, either in France or England--as if all my Paris life were a brief, bright dream, and this the dreary waking. Hortense was out. It was one of her busy mornings, and she would not be back till the afternoon. It was very bitter to leave without one last look--one last word. I seized pen and paper, and yielding for the first time to all the impulses of my love, wrote, without weighing my words, these few brief sentences:--
"I have had a heavy loss, Hortense, and by the time you open this letter I shall be far away. My father--my dear, good father--is no more. My mother died when I was a little child. I have no brothers--no sisters--no close family ties. I am alone in the world now--quite alone. My last thought here is of you. If it seems strange to speak of love at such a moment, forgive me, for that love is now my only hope. Oh, that you were here, that I might kiss your hand at parting, and know that some of your thoughts went with me! I cannot believe that you are quite indifferent to me. It seems impossible that, loving you as I love, so deeply, so earnestly, I should love in vain. When I come back I shall seek you here, where I have loved you so long. I shall look into your eyes for my answer, and read in them all the joy, or all the despair, of the life that lies before me. I had intended to get that portrait copied again for you, because you saw in it some likeness to your mother; but there has been no time, and ere you receive this letter I shall be gone. I therefore send the picture to you by the concierge. It is my parting gift to you. I can offer no greater proof of my love. Farewell."
Once written, I dared not read the letter over. I thrust it under her door, and in less than five minutes was on my way to the station.
CHAPTER LIII.
THE FADING OF THE RAINBOW.
I loved a love once, fairest among women;
Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her--
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
LAMB.
Beautifully and truly, in the fourth book of the most poetical of stories, has a New World romancist described the state of a sorrowing lover. "All around him," saith he, "seemed dreamy and vague; all within him, as in a sun's eclipse. As the moon, whether visible or invisible, has power over the tides of the ocean, so the face of that lady, whether present or absent, had power over the tides of his soul, both by day and night, both waking and sleeping. In every pale face and dark eye he saw a resemblance to her; and what the day denied him in reality, the night gave him in dreams."