llen race, vain force, love run to waste,
an old man in the prime of youth, here better than elsewhere shall I
await the last grace of death. Alas! under this murky sky no spark will
kindle these ashes again to flame. Thus my last words may be those of
Christ, _My God, Thou hast forsaken me!_ Cry of agony and terror, to the
core of which no mortal has ventured yet to penetrate!

You can realize now, Fernand, what a joy it is to me to live afresh in
you and Marie. I shall watch you henceforth with the pride of a creator
satisfied in his work. Love each other well and go on loving if you
would not give me pain; any discord between you would hurt me more than
it would yourselves.

Our mother had a presentiment that events would one day serve her
wishes. It may be that the longing of a mother constitutes a pact
between herself and God. Was she not, moreover, one of those mysterious
beings who can hold converse with Heaven and bring back thence a vision
of the future? How often have I not read in the lines of her forehead
that she was coveting for Fernand the honors and the wealth of Felipe!
When I said so to her, she would reply with tears, laying bare the
wounds of a heart, which of right was the undivided property of both her
sons, but which an irresistible passion gave to you alone.

Her spirit, therefore, will hover joyfully above your heads as you bow
them at the altar. My mother, have you not a caress for your Felipe now
that he has yielded to your favorite even the girl whom you regretfully
thrust into his arms? What I have done is pleasing to our womankind,
to the dead, and to the King; it is the will of God. Make no difficulty
then, Fernand; obey, and be silent.

_P. S._ Tell Urraca to be sure and call me nothing but M. Henarez. Don't
say a word about me to Marie. You must be the one living soul to know
the secrets of the last Christianized Moor, in whose veins runs the
blood of a great family, which took its rise in the desert and is now
about to die out in the person of a solitary exile.

Farewell.

VII. LOUISE DE CHAULIEU TO RENEE DE MAUCOMBE

WHAT! To be married so soon. But this is unheard of. At the end of a
month you become engaged to a man who is a stranger to you, and about
whom you know nothing. The man may be deaf--there are so many kinds of
deafness!--he may be sickly, tiresome, insufferable!

Don't you see, Renee, what they want with you? You are needful for
carrying on the glorious stoc