"'Oh!' replied she quickly, 'if I die first, I will come to seek you.'
"Before that cry, uttered from the heart, before that affection that felt itself sufficiently strong to vanquish the laws of death, sufficiently holy that God should grant it a miracle, silence could be the only answer; but a glance of Albert replaced with all the eloquence of the heart the powerless word. On the morrow of that evening, Albert left Flaminia. I will not paint to you their affliction. It was immense. But a hope that is too ill known in this, our century, sustained their courage and energy. At the moment of an adieu so cruel to both, not a tear fell from their eyes. That they did flow, and most abundantly and bitterly, there is no doubt, since grief never loses its rights, and human force, even the best sustained, has its bounds; but they flowed in silence and in secret, and he who was their only witness treasured them up. The days, the months, the seasons passed on; three times the trees had lost their foliage and renewed their leaves; three times had the alley of vines seen the winter's sun pass unobstructed through their naked branches. All had changed around them; their hearts alone changed not. The renown of Albert grew each day, with his valor, more brilliant; but it was no longer renown that he sought, it was a death that would have opened before him that wide field where impatience dies away before the eternity that then commences; death that he desired because it would have brought him near to Flaminia; and death would not listen to him. In vain did he fling himself into the thickest of the danger; in vain did he accomplish prodigies that had caused the bravest to turn pale; he passed through all these without even a wound. Although he had but very rare occasion of knowing what passed in that cherished spot where ever rested his heart and thoughts, still he doubted not but that the tenderness of Flaminia was as lively and as deep as his own; nor did he deceive himself. Flaminia had refused under different pretexts the offers that had been made to her; and notwithstanding all the desire they felt to establish their daughter, I would dare to affirm that it was not without a certain secret joy that the Prince and Princess Balbo looked upon the prospect before them, the hope of keeping her always by their side. Do not blame them too quickly, my friend; for it is a painful thought that during twenty years a child should have been the object of your affection and of your solicitude; that she should have taken the best and largest portion of your life and heart, in order that, one day, a stranger, under the title of a new-born love, should carry away from you all your joy; leaving you to see your much-loved child place herself under another protection than thine, and quit without regret the house where she leaves a blank that nothing else can fill.
"I had almost forgotten to tell you that Antonia had married Adolphus, and lived happy and peaceful in this same castle where we now are finishing our career. Albert, tired of war, and freed from all further illusions of glory, had come, after having refused the highest distinctions of the order, to seek some repose by his brother's side. Ambition was dead in him; his soul, that had been so severely proved, had need of recollection and calm; and he found this by the side of him whom, after Flaminia, he loved the best in the world. Moreover, although he himself scarcely ever spoke of her who filled all his thoughts, still he felt a lively pleasure in hearing her spoken of so frequently by his brother and his wife. Albert was then calm and composed; he marched courageously forward in life as does the traveller who climbs with difficulty the bare paths of a desolate and arid mountain, sure to find in the evening the joys of the fireside and the shelter of his friends' roof.
"Three years, day by day, had passed away since the moment when Albert had quitted the palace Balbo. It was the evening; Adolphus and Antonia were by his side, in this same saloon where we now are. Contrary to his custom, Albert, for whom that anniversary was a day of mourning, felt his soul full of a penetrating and serene joy, when ten o'clock sounded from that same clock that—"
Here the recital of the count was interrupted by the sound of the clock which resounded in the vast apartment. One would have said that it affirmed the words of the count, by repeating the ten strokes which it had caused to be heard at the moment of which he was speaking. That metallic sound seemed to have in it an unusual power; there was something solemn in its grave slowness; in the deep noise of the wheel drawn round by the falling lead, which accompanied with its heavy base the more piercing sound that traversed the thick oaken case. Both the count and his friends were seized by an impression which they did not seek to dispel or resist. Both instinctively uncovered their heads, and while the count waited almost respectfully until its last vibrations were lost in silence, the baron, more moved than perhaps he was willing to show, placed on the table his pipe, yet fully charged with tobacco, and, an event that certainly had not occurred with him once in ten years, he left that inseparable companion of his leisure hours, without touching the tankard that in vain offered to his gaze its brown and golden tints.
"Ten o'clock had then sounded," continued the count, "and that being the moment when each was accustomed to separate for their bedrooms, Adolphus had got up and looked at his brother, who had been for some time previous motionless and in an attitude of profound attention, resembling a man who follows with his ear the scarcely perceptible sounds of some distant harmony.
"All is finished,' murmured Albert at the moment when the clock had finished striking; and, placing his hand on his brother's arm, 'Remain here,' said he, and turning toward Antonia: 'Pardon me, my sister, if I thus detain Adolphus; but I have need of him to-night, and to-morrow it will be too late.'
"'You frighten me,' answered Antonia; 'what then is going to happen?'
"'You will know very soon,' replied Albert. 'Poor sister! your eyes will shed many a tear; but they will be dried by the thought that the motive which causes them to flow assures for ever the happiness of those who are dear to you.'
"He then kissed her forehead, and, followed by Adolphus, went to his own room, the same which is now yours, dear Frederick.