"Do you know who this poor sufferer was whom our child had learned so to love, who died in her arms, who sleeps in the graveyard there, and of whom Adèle thinks as of a mother? I have inquired, I have searched high and low, I have fathomed all. Ah, my poor, good sister Marie! Only Marie! You have never known her. In those other days at dear Arles she was too good for you to know her. Yet even then she was a guardian angel,—a guardian too late. Mea culpa! Mea culpa!
"I know it can be only Marie; I know it can be only she, who sleeps under the sod in Ash——(ce nom m'échappe).
"Listen again: in those early, bitter charming days, when you, Monsieur, knew the hillsides and the drives about our dear old town of Arles, poor Marie was away; had she been there, I had never listened, as I did listen, to the words you whispered in my ear. Only when it was too late, she came. Poor, good Marie! how she pleaded with me! How her tender, good face spoke reproaches to me! If I was the pride of our household, she was the angel. She it was, who, knowing the worst, said, 'Julie, this must end!' She it was who labored day and night to set me free from the wicked web that bound me. I reproached her, the poor, good Marie, in saying that she was the plainer, that she had no beauty, that she was devoured with envy. But the Blessed Virgin was working ever by her side. Whatever doubts you may have entertained of me, Monsieur,—she created them; whatever suspicions tortured you,—she fed them, but always with the holiest of motives. And when shame came, as it did come, the poor Marie would have screened me,—would have carried the odium herself. Good Marie! the angels have her in keeping!
"Listen again, Monsieur! When that story, that false story, of the death of my poor child, came to light in the journals, who but Marie should come to me—deceived herself as I was deceived—and say, 'Julie, dear one, God has taken the child in mercy; there is no stigma can rest upon you in the eyes of the world. Live now as the Blessed Magdalen lived when Christ had befriended her.' And by her strength I was made strong; the Blessed Virgin be thanked!
"Finally, it came to her knowledge one day,—the dear Marie!—that the rumor of the death was untrue,—that the babe was living,—that the poor child had been sent over the seas to your home, Monsieur. Well, I was far away in the East. Does Marie tell me? No, the dear one! She writes me, that she is going 'over seas,'—tired of la belle France,—she who loved it so dearly! And she went,—to watch, to pray, to console. And I, the mother!—Mon Dieu, Monsieur, the words fail me. No wonder our child loved her; no wonder she seems a mother to her!
"Listen yet again, Monsieur. My poor sister died yonder, in that heretical land,—may be without absolution.
'Ave Martha margarita
In corona Jesu sita,
Tam in morte quam in vita
Sis nobis propitia!'
I must go, if it be only to find her grave, and to secure her burial in some consecrated spot. She waits for me,—her ghost, her spirit,—I must go; the holy water must be sprinkled; the priestly rites be said. Marie, poor Marie, I will not fail you.
"Monsieur, I must go!—not alone to greet our child, but to do justice to my sainted sister! Listen well! All that has been devotional in my poor life centres here! I must go,—I must do what I may to hallow my poor sister's grave. Adèle will not give up her welcome surely, if I am moved by such religious purpose. She, too, must join me in an Ave Maria over that resting-place of the departed.
"I shall send this letter by the overland and British mail, that it may come to you very swiftly. It will come to you while you are with the poor child,—our Adèle. Greet her for me as warmly as you can. Tell her I shall hope, God willing, to bring her into the bosom of his Holy Church Catholic. I shall try and love her, though she remain a heretic; but this will not be.