--Between a friend who fears
you and a friend who loves you and claims you--can you hesitate?

ROGER DE MONBERT.

XXIII.

IRENE DE CHATEAUDUN to Mme. LA VICOMTESSE DE BRAIMES,
Grenoble (Isere).

Pont de L'Arche, July 15th 18--.

Come to my help, my dear Valentine--I am miserable. Each joyless morning
finds me more wretched than I was the previous night. Oh! what a burden
is life to those who are fated to live only for life itself! No sunshine
gilds my horizon with the promises of hope--I expect nothing but sorrow.
Who can I trust now that my own heart has misled me? When error arose
from the duplicity of others I could support the disenchantment--the
deceptive love of Roger was not a bitter surprise, my instinct had
already divined it; I comprehended a want of congeniality between us,
and felt that a rapture would anticipate an alliance: and while thinking
I loved him, I yet said to myself: This is not love.

But now I am my own deceiver--and I awaken to lament the self-confidence
and assurance that were the source of my strength and courage. With
flattering ecstasy I cried: It is he!... Alas! he replied not: It is
she! And now he is gone--he has left me! Dreadful awakening from so
beautiful a dream!

Valentine, burn quickly the letter telling you of my ingenuous hopes, my
confident happiness--yes, burn the foolish letter, so there will remain
no witness of my unrequited love! What! that deep emotion agitating my
whole being, whose language was the tears of joy that dimmed my eyes,
and the counted beatings of my throbbing heart--that master-passion, at
whose behest I trembled while blushes mantled and fled from my cheek,
betraying me to him and him to me; the love whose fire I could not
hide--the beautiful future I foresaw--that world of bliss in which I
began to live--this pure love that gave an impetus to life--this
devotion that I felt was reciprocated.... All, all was but a creation of
my fancy.... and all has vanished ... here I am alone with nothing to
strengthen me but a memory ... the memory of a lost illusion.... Have I
a right to complain? It is the irrevocable law--after fiction,
reality--after a meteor, darkness--after the mirage, a desert!

I loved as a young heart full of faith and tenderness never loved
before--and this love was a mistake; he was a stranger to me--he did not
love me, and I had no excuse for loving him; he is gone, he had a right
to go, and I had no right to detain him--I