we may love each
other throughout the ages. This hope alone can comfort me. If I am
worthy of being there at once, I will follow you through life. My
soul shall bear your company; it will wrap you about, for _you_
must stay here still,--ah! here below. Lead a holy life that you
may the more surely come to me. You can do such good upon this
earth! Is it not an angel's mission for the suffering soul to shed
happiness about him,--to give to others that which he has not? I
bequeath you to the Unhappy. Their smiles, their tears, are the
only ones of which I cannot be jealous. We shall find a charm in
sweet beneficence. Can we not live together still if you would
join my name--your Clemence--in these good works?

"After loving as we have loved, there is naught but God, Jules.
God does not lie; God never betrays. Adore him only, I charge you!
Lead those who suffer up to him; comfort the sorrowing members of
his Church. Farewell, dear soul that I have filled! I know you;
you will never love again. I may die happy in the thought that
makes all women happy. Yes, my grave will be your heart. After
this childhood I have just related, has not my life flowed on
within that heart? Dead, you will never drive me forth. I am proud
of that rare life! You will know me only in the flower of my
youth; I leave you regrets without disillusions. Jules, it is a
happy death.

"You, who have so fully understood me, may I ask one thing more of
you,--superfluous request, perhaps, the fulfilment of a woman's
fancy, the prayer of a jealousy we all must feel,--I pray you to
burn all that especially belonged to _us_, destroy our chamber,
annihilate all that is a memory of our happiness.

"Once more, farewell,--the last farewell! It is all love, and so
will be my parting thought, my parting breath."

When Jules had read that letter there came into his heart one of those
wild frenzies of which it is impossible to describe the awful anguish.
All sorrows are individual; their effects are not subjected to any fixed
rule. Certain men will stop their ears to hear nothing; some women close
their eyes hoping never to see again; great and splendid souls are met
with who fling themselves into sorrow as into an abyss. In the matter of
despair, all is true.

CHAPTER V. CONCLUSION

Jules escaped from his brother's house and returned home, wishing
to pass the night beside his wife, and see ti