sed by the saint who presided over his birthday, to finish his
perils in all imaginable felicity.

Giving him into the care of my servants, I was at length alone. The
letter was in my hand. Yet still I dreaded to break the seal. What might
not be the painful sentiments and sorrowful remonstrances within that
seal? But Clotilde was living; was near me; was still the same
confiding, generous, and high-souled being.--Sorrow and terror were now
passed away. I opened the letter. It was a detail of her thoughts,
written in the moments which she could snatch from the insulting
surveillance round her; and was evidently intended less as a letter than
a legacy of her last feelings, written to relieve an overburdened heart,
with but slight hope of its ever reaching my hand. It was written on
various fragments of paper, and often blotted with tears. It began
abruptly. I shuddered at the misery which spoke in every word.

"I am, at this hour, in the lowest depth of wretchedness. I have but one
consolation, that no life can endure this agony long. After being
carried from garrison to garrison, with my eyes shocked and my feelings
tortured by the sights and sufferings of war, I am at last consigned to
the hands of the being whom on earth I most dread and abhor. Montrecour
has arrived to take the command of Saumur. I have not yet seen him; but
he has had the cruelty to announce that I am his prisoner, and shall be
his wife. But the wife of Montrecour I never will be; rather a thousand
times would I wed the grave!----

"This letter may never reach your hands, or, if it does, it may only be
when the great barrier is raised between us, and this heart shall be
dust. Marston, shall I then be remembered? Shall my faith, my feelings,
and my sufferings, ever come across your mind?--Let not Clotilde be
forgotten. I revered, honoured, loved you. I feel my heart beat, and my
cheek burn at the words--but I shall not recall them. On the verge of
the future world, I speak with the truth of a spirit, and oh, with the
sincerity of a woman!----

"From that eventful day when I first met your glance, I determined that
no power on earth should ever make me the wife of another. To me you
remained almost a total stranger. Yet the die was cast. I finally
resolved to abandon the world, to hide my unhappy head in a convent, and
there, in loneliness and silence, endure, for I never could hope to
extinguish, those struggles of heart which forced me to leave a