The good missionary explained to Madame Godin, after she was somewhat recruited from her late sufferings, the frightful length of the way, and the labors and dangers of her journey yet to come, and tried hard to induce her to alter her intention, and return to Rio Bambas, her former residence, instead of setting forth to encounter a new series of disappointments and perils. He promised, in that case, to convey her safely and with comfort. But the heroic woman rejected the proposal with immovable firmness. "God, who had so wonderfully protected her so far," she said, "would have her in his keeping for the remainder of her way. She had but one wish remaining, and that was to be re-united to her husband; and she knew no danger terrible enough to induce her to give up this one ruling desire of her heart."
The missionary, therefore, had a boat got ready to carry her to the Portuguese vessel. The Governor of Omaguas furnished the boat, and supplied it well with provisions: and, that the commander of the Portuguese galiot might be informed of her approach, he sent a smaller boat with provisions, and two soldiers by land, along the banks of the river, and betook himself to Loreto, where the galiot had been so long lying; and there he waited till Madame Godin arrived.
She still suffered severely from the consequences of the injuries which she had sustained during her wanderings in the wilderness. Particularly, the thumb of one hand, in which she had thrust a thorn, which they had not been able to get out, was in a bad condition. The bone itself was become carious, and she found it necessary to have the flesh cut open to allow fragments of the bone to come out. As for the rest, she experienced from the commander of the Portuguese vessel all possible kindness, and reached the mouth of the Amazon River without any further misadventure.
Mr. Godin, who still continued at Oyapoc (the same place where on account of sickness he had been obliged to stop), was no sooner informed of the approach of his wife than he went on board a vessel, and coasted along the shore till he met the galiot. The joy of again meeting, after a separation of so many years, and after such calamities undergone, was, as may well be supposed, on both sides, indescribably great. Their re-union seemed like a resurrection from the dead, since both of them had more than once given up all hope of ever seeing the other in this life.
The happy husband now conveyed his wife to Oyapoc, and thence to Cayenne; whence they departed on their return to France, in company with the venerable Mr. De Grandmaison. Madame Godin remained, however, constantly sad, notwithstanding her present ample cause for joy; and every endeavor to raise her spirits was fruitless, so deep and inextinguishable an impression had the terrible sufferings she had undergone made upon her mind. She spoke unwillingly of all that she had suffered; and even her husband found out with difficulty, and by little and little, the circumstances which we have narrated, taken from accounts under his own hand. He thought he could thereby infer that she had kept to herself, to spare his feelings, many circumstances of a distressing nature, which she herself preferred to forget. Her heart, too, was, by reason of her sufferings, so attuned to pity and forbearance, that her compassion even extended to the base and wicked men who had treated her with such injustice. She would therefore add nothing to induce her husband to invoke the vengeance of the law against the faithless Tristan, the first cause of all her misfortunes, who had converted to his own use many thousand dollars' worth of property which had been intrusted to him. She had even allowed herself to be persuaded to take on board the boat from Omaguas down, for a second time, the mean-souled Mr. R.
So true is it that adversity and suffering do fulfil the useful purpose of rendering the human heart tender, placable, and indulgent.