d that I am going away.

--Oh, Heavens, I am trembling all over.... What! you are going away? And
where? And when?

--To-morrow morning, Mademoiselle, after Mass.

--For ever?

--Perhaps.

--You are leaving Althausen so, without saying good-bye to your
parishioners, to your friends!

--I have no friends, Mademoiselle, I have only you, who are willing to hear
me some ... friendship; only you, who have sometimes thought of the poor
solitary at the parsonage, therefore I thank you for it from the bottom of
my heart, and I wanted to bid you ... farewell.

--But why this sudden and unexpected departure?

--A more important cure is offered me, Mademoiselle, and I have, like
others, a little grain of ambition.

--Oh, I understand, Monsieur, and let me congratulate you on this change in
your fortune. Is it far?

--Nancy, Mademoiselle.

--Nancy! I am glad of it on your account. You will have distractions there
which you have not here. I almost envy you.

--Do not envy me, Mademoiselle, for I carry away death in my soul. I am
sorrowful as Christ at Golgotha. I spoke to you of ambition. It is false, I
have no ambition. Other motives than miserable calculations compel me to
depart.

--Motives ... serious?

--You will understand them, Mademoiselle, for I must confess it to you, and
that I should not do if I was to remain in this parish. But from the day I
saw you, I have felt myself drawn towards you by an invincible sympathy.
Oh, be not disturbed. Let not my words offend you; it is the fondness which
I should have felt for a dearly-loved sister, if God had given me one.
Believe it truly, Mademoiselle, the spotless calyx of the lily, the emblem
of purity, is not more chaste than my thoughts when they fly towards you,
for when I think of you, I think of the queen of angels; that is why I
wished to see you again and bid you farewell.

--I thank you, sir.

--I wished to say to you: Farewell! I go away, but tell me, not if I may
ask to see you sometimes again--I dare not ask so great a favour--but if I
shall have the right to mingle my memory with yours, my thought with your
thought; tell me if you wish me to remain your friend though far away. We
leave one another, we separate, but is that a reason why all should end?
May we not write, give one another advice, follow one another from afar on
the arduous road of life?

It is so sweet, when we are alone, when the heart is sad, when the heaven
is dark and the tears