“Come, my dear, when you will. Your parents’ home and hearts will always be open to you. Meantime, write often to us, Aimée.”
“Oh, yes! I will. I will write very often; and you will answer. I have heard perpetually of my mother, and of poor Génifrède. But where is Placide? I thought we should have met him. Was not he at Cap?”
“At Cap! No, indeed! He was too heart-broken to be at Cap to-day.”
“I wish I could understand it all!” said Aimée, sadly. “I am sure there are many things that I do not know or comprehend. I thought all had been right now; and yet you and Placide are unhappy. I cannot understand it all.”
“Time will explain, my child. There will come a day when all doubts will be cleared up, and all woes at an end—when the wicked will cease from troubling, love, and the weary be at rest.”
“Must you be going, father, already? Oh! I wish—”
And she looked at Isaac, as if purposing to go to Pongaudin. Isaac, had, however, promised Madame Leclerc to return by an appointed hour. There could be no difficulty, he said, in going to Pongaudin any day: but to-day he had promised that they would both return to Madame Leclerc. Aimée, therefore, bade her father farewell for the present—only for a very little while. He must tell her mother that they should certainly meet very soon.
In the piazza, at Pongaudin, Toussaint found Christophe.
“I wish,” said Christophe, “you would send to Dessalines not only the Captain-General’s message, but your own request that he will yield.”
“I cannot, Henri.”