es
it make any difference what becomes of me? Hope is dead within me. I no
longer dream of happiness. At last the sad mystery is explained.... M.
de Villiers is not free; he is engaged to his cousin.... Oh, he does not
love her, I am sure, but he is a slave to his plighted troth, and of
course she loves him and will not release him ... Can he, for a
stranger, sacrifice family ties and a love dating from his childhood?
Ah! if he really loved me, he would have had the courage to make this
sacrifice; but he only felt a tender sympathy for me, lively enough to
fill him with everlasting regret, not strong enough to inspire him with
a painful resolution. Thus two beings created for each other meet for a
moment, recognise one another, and then, unwillingly, separate, carrying
in their different paths of life a burden of eternal regrets! And they
languish apart in their separate spheres, unhappy and attached to
nothing but the memory of the past--made wretched for life by the
accidents of a day!

They are as the passengers of different ships, meeting for an hour in
the same port, who hastily exchange a few words of sympathy, then pass
away to other latitudes, under other skies--some to the North, others to
the South, to the land of ice--to the cradle of the sun--far, far away
from each other, to die. Is it then true that I shall never see him
again? Oh, my God! how I loved him! I can never forgive him for not
accepting this love that I was ready to lavish upon him.

I will now tell you what I have resolved to do. If I waver a moment I
shall not have the courage to keep my promise. Madame de Meilhan is
coming after me; I could not, after causing her such sorrow, resist the
tears of this unhappy mother. She was in despair; her son had suddenly
left her, and in spite of the secrecy of his movements, she discovered
that he was at Havre and had taken passage there for America, on the
steamer Ontario. She hoped to reach Havre in time to see her son, and
she relied upon me to bring him home. I am distressed at causing her so
much uneasiness, but what can I say to console her? I will at best be
generous; Edgar's sorrow is like my own; as he suffers for me, I suffer
for another; I cannot see his anguish, so like my own, without profound
pity; this pity will doubtless inspire me with eloquence enough to
persuade him to remain in France and not break his mother's heart by
desertion. Besides, I have promised, and Madame de Meilhan relies