--

"Such a one is my ideal as to soul, and I love the other who is only a
dream of the senses."

The last letter written by Modeste, which here follows, gives us
a glimpse of the enchanted isle to which the meanderings of this
correspondence had led the two lovers.

To Monsieur de Canalis,--Be at Havre next Sunday; go to church;
after the morning service, walk once or twice round the nave, and
go out without speaking to any one; but wear a white rose in your
button-hole. Then return to Paris, where you shall receive an
answer. I warn you that this answer will not be what you wish;
for, as I told you, the future is not yet mine. But should I not
indeed be mad and foolish to say yes without having seen you? When
I have seen you I can say no without wounding you; I can make sure
that you shall not see me.

This letter had been sent off the evening before the day when the
abortive struggle between Dumay and Modeste had taken place. The happy
girl was impatiently awaiting Sunday, when her eyes were to vindicate or
condemn her heart and her actions,--a solemn moment in the life of any
woman, and which three months of close communion of souls now rendered
as romantic as the most imaginative maiden could have wished. Every one,
except the mother, had taken this torpor of expectation for the calm of
innocence. No matter how firmly family laws and religious precepts may
bind, there will always be the Clarissas and the Julies, whose souls
like flowing cups o'erlap the brim under some spiritual pressure.
Modeste was glorious in the savage energy with which she repressed her
exuberant youthful happiness and remained demurely quiet. Let us say
frankly that the memory of her sister was more potent upon her than any
social conventions; her will was iron in the resolve to bring no grief
upon her father and her mother. But what tumultuous heavings were within
her breast! no wonder that a mother guessed them.

On the following day Modeste and Madame Dumay took Madame Mignon about
mid-day to a seat in the sun among the flowers. The blind woman turned
her wan and blighted face toward the ocean; she inhaled the odors of
the sea and took the hand of her daughter who remained beside her. The
mother hesitated between forgiveness and remonstrance ere she put the
important question; for she comprehended the girl's love and recognized,
as the pretended Canalis had done, that Modeste was exceptional in
nature.

"God grant