ion in some
certain minutes I then passed alone--a grief inexpressible over a loss
unendurable. _What_ should I do; oh! _what_ should I do; when all my
life's hope was thus torn by the roots out of my riven, outraged heart?

What I _should_ have done, I know not, when a little child--the least
child in the school--broke with its simplicity and its unconsciousness
into the raging yet silent centre of that inward conflict.

"Mademoiselle," lisped the treble voice, "I am to give you that. M.
Paul said I was to seek you all over the house, from the grenier to the
cellar, and when I found you, to give you that."

And the child delivered a note; the little dove dropped on my knee, its
olive leaf plucked off. I found neither address nor name, only these
words:--

"It was not my intention to take leave of you when I said good-by to
the rest, but I hoped to see you in classe. I was disappointed. The
interview is deferred. Be ready for me. Ere I sail, I must see you at
leisure, and speak with you at length. Be ready; my moments are
numbered, and, just now, monopolized; besides, I have a private
business on hand which I will not share with any, nor communicate--even
to you.--PAUL."

"Be ready?" Then it must be this evening: was he not to go on the
morrow? Yes; of that point I was certain. I had seen the date of his
vessel's departure advertised. Oh! _I_ would be ready, but could that
longed-for meeting really be achieved? the time was so short, the
schemers seemed so watchful, so active, so hostile; the way of access
appeared strait as a gully, deep as a chasm--Apollyon straddled across
it, breathing flames. Could my Greatheart overcome? Could my guide
reach me?

Who might tell? Yet I began to take some courage, some comfort; it
seemed to me that I felt a pulse of his heart beating yet true to the
whole throb of mine.

I waited my champion. Apollyon came trailing his Hell behind him. I
think if Eternity held torment, its form would not be fiery rack, nor
its nature despair. I think that on a certain day amongst those days
which never dawned, and will not set, an angel entered Hades--stood,
shone, smiled, delivered a prophecy of conditional pardon, kindled a
doubtful hope of bliss to come, not now, but at a day and hour unlooked
for, revealed in his own glory and grandeur the height and compass of
his promise: spoke thus--then towering, became a star, and vanished
into his own Heaven. His legacy was suspense--a worse boon