She had said once, as we have seen, that she would give life and all to see Maurice once more serving God. She had written to him thus, not carelessly indeed, but as we are too wont to write—not counting the cost, because we know not what the cost is. She wrote thus, and God took her at her word, and he asked from her not life, as she then meant it, but her life's life. First came the trial of a temporary estrangement. Her journal suddenly stops; she believed it wearied him, and, without a word of reproach, she silenced her eager pen. Maurice, however, declared she was mistaken, and she joyfully resumed her task with words which would evidence, if nothing else were left, us, the intense depth of her love for her brother. "I was in the wrong. So much the better; for I had feared it had been your fault." Then Maurice's health, which had always been delicate, began to fail, and her heart was tortured at the thought of him suffering, away from her loving care, unable to send her news of him.

"I have, been reading the epistle about the child raised to life by Elias. Oh, if I knew some prophet, some one who would give back life and health, I would go, like the Shunamite, and throw myself at his feet."

And again, most touchingly, she says: "A letter from Felicité, which tells me nothing better about you. When will those who know more write? If they knew how a woman's heart beats, they would have more pity."

Maurice recovered from these attacks, and in the autumn of 1836 married a young and pretty Creole lady. He had not the violent attachment as to the "Louise" of his early youth; but the union seemed a suitable one on both sides. One of Eugénie's brief visits to Paris was made for the purpose of being present at her brother's marriage. It was a romantic scene. It took place in the chapel of the old and quaint Abbaye aux Bois. The church was filled with brilliant and admiring friends. The bride and bridegroom, both so beautiful, knelt before the altar; the Père Bugnet, who had [{223}] known Maurice as a boy, blessed the union. The gay procession passed from the church, and met a funeral cortège! It fell like an omen on Eugénie's heart. Six short months went by, and Eugénie was again summoned to Paris, to Maurice's sick-bed—his dying-bed it indeed was, but his sister's passionate love would not relinquish hope. The physicians, catching at a straw, prescribed native air, and the invalid caught at the proposal with feverish impatience. That eager longing sustained him through the long and terrible journey of twenty days; for, the moment he revived, he would be laid in the salon, and see the home-faces gathered round him. Then he was carried to his room, and soon the end came. At last Eugénie knew that he must go, and all the powers of her soul were gathered into that one prayer, that he might die at peace with God. Calmly she bent over him, and kissed the forehead, damp with the dews of death.

"Dearest, M. le Curé is coming, and you will confess. You have no difficulty in speaking to M. le Curé?" "Not at all," he answered. "You will prepare for confession, then?" He asked for his prayer-book, and had the prayers read to him.

When the priest came, he asked for more time to prepare. At last the curé was summoned.

"Never have I heard a confession better made," said the priest afterward. As he was leaving the room, Maurice called him back, and made a solemn retraction of the doctrines of M. de Lamennais. Then came the Viaticum and the last anointing. Life ebbed away; he pressed the hand of the curé, who was by him to the last, he kissed his crucifix, and died. Eugénie's prayer was heard. He died, but at home; a wanderer come back; an erring child, once more forgiven, resting on his Father's breast.

And he was gone!—"king of my heart! my other self!" as she had called him—and Eugénie was left behind. She had loved him too well for her eternal peace, and it was necessary that she should be purified in the crucible of suffering. Very gradually she parted from him; the gates of the tomb closed not on her love; slowly she uprooted the fibres of her nature which had been entwined in his. Her journal did not end, and she wrote still to him—to Maurice in heaven: "Oh, my beloved Maurice! Maurice, art thou far from me? hearest thou me? Sometimes I shed torrents of tears; then the soul is dried up. All my life will be a mourning one; my heart is desolate." Then, reproaching herself, she turns to her only consolation: "Do I not love thee, my God? only true and Eternal Love! It seems to me that I love thee as the fearful Peter, but not like John, who rested on thy heart—divine repose which I so need. What do I seek in creatures? To make a pillow of a human breast? Alas! I have seen how death can take that from us. Better to lean, Jesus, on thy crown of thorns.

******

"This day year, we went together to St. Sulpice, to the one o'clock mass. To-day I have been to Lentin in the rain, with bitter memories, in solitude. But, my soul, calm thyself with thy God, whom thou hast received to-day, in that little church. He is thy brother, thy friend, the well-beloved above all; whom thou canst never see die; who can never fail thee, in this world or the next. Let us console ourselves with this thought, that in God we shall find again all we have lost."