“I am sure of it, if I see him again, I feel it, his presence will kill me.
“To-morrow you must leave France.
“When this poor child is confided to you, if he survives his sad infancy, Pierre, love him, oh, love him! He will never have had a mother’s love. I wish, if he is worthy of the sacred vocation, and if it suits his mind and his character, I wish him to be a priest. Some day you will tell him the terrible secret of his birth.
“He will pray for you and for me, and perhaps Heaven will hear his prayers. I feel very feeble, very feeble. Again, Pierre, I must see you. Ah, how cruelly we expiate a few days of madness!
“Once more, that which most pains me is his confidence. Oh, I tell you that the sight of him will kill me. I feel that I must die.”
The marks of the tears could still be seen upon this letter written with a feeble, fainting hand.
Pog, after having read the pages which portrayed so faithfully the agony of Emilie’s soul, gazed thoughtfully upon the lines.
He bowed his head on his breast. That man so cruelly outraged, that man hardened by hatred, could not refuse a feeling of pity for this unhappy woman.
A tear, a burning tear, the only one he had shed in years, coursed his weather-beaten cheek.
Then his resentment against the author of all these woes rose again in fury. He thanked Heaven for having at last made known to him the seducer of Emilie, but he did not now wish to concentrate his thought on the terrible vengeance that he meditated.