lines at the end: "During the first three years
of your professorship, you will be required to reside in or near Paris
nine months out of the year, for the purpose of delivering lectures and
superintending experiments from time to time in the laboratories." The
letter in which these lines occurred offered him such a position as
in his modest self-distrust he had never dreamed of before; the lines
themselves contained the promise of such vast facilities for carrying
on his favorite experiments as he could never hope to command in his
own little study, with his own limited means; and yet, there he now
sat doubting whether he should accept or reject the tempting honors and
advantages that were offered to him--doubting for his sister's sake!

"Nine months of the year in Paris," he said to himself, sadly; "and Rose
is to pass her married life at Lyons. Oh, if I could clear my heart of
its dread on her account--if I could free my mind of its forebodings for
her future--how gladly I would answer this letter by accepting the trust
it offers me!"

He paused for a few minutes, and reflected. The thoughts that were in
him marked their ominous course in the growing paleness of his cheek,
in the dimness that stole over his eyes. "If this cleaving distrust from
which I cannot free myself should be in very truth the mute prophecy of
evil to come--to come, I know not when--if it be so (which God forbid!),
how soon she may want a friend, a protector near at hand, a ready refuge
in the time of her trouble! Where shall she then find protection or
refuge? With that passionate woman? With her husband's kindred and
friends?"

He shuddered as the thought crossed his mind, and opening a blank sheet
of paper, dipped his pen in the ink. "Be all to her, Louis, that I have
been," he murmured to himself, repeating his mother's last words, and
beginning the letter while he uttered them. It was soon completed. It
expressed in the most respectful terms his gratitude for the offer
made to him, and his inability to accept it, in consequence of domestic
circumstances which it was needless to explain. The letter was directed,
sealed; it only remained for him to place it in the post-bag, lying near
at hand. At this last decisive act he hesitated. He had told Lomaque,
and he had firmly believed himself, that he had conquered all ambitions
for his sister's sake. He knew now, for the first time, that he had
only lulled them to rest--he knew that the letter