whole, suffering as little as any human
being I have ever known.

CHAPTER XLI.

FAUBOURG CLOTILDE.

Must I, ere I close, render some account of that Freedom and Renovation
which I won on the fete-night? Must I tell how I and the two stalwart
companions I brought home from the illuminated park bore the test of
intimate acquaintance?

I tried them the very next day. They had boasted their strength loudly
when they reclaimed me from love and its bondage, but upon my demanding
deeds, not words, some evidence of better comfort, some experience of a
relieved life--Freedom excused himself, as for the present impoverished
and disabled to assist; and Renovation never spoke; he had died in the
night suddenly.

I had nothing left for it then but to trust secretly that conjecture
might have hurried me too fast and too far, to sustain the oppressive
hour by reminders of the distorting and discolouring magic of jealousy.
After a short and vain struggle, I found myself brought back captive to
the old rack of suspense, tied down and strained anew.

Shall I yet see him before he goes? Will he bear me in mind? Does he
purpose to come? Will this day--will the next hour bring him? or must I
again assay that corroding pain of long attent--that rude agony of
rupture at the close, that mute, mortal wrench, which, in at once
uprooting hope and doubt, shakes life; while the hand that does the
violence cannot be caressed to pity, because absence interposes her
barrier!

It was the Feast of the Assumption; no school was held. The boarders
and teachers, after attending mass in the morning, were gone a long
walk into the country to take their gouter, or afternoon meal, at some
farm-house. I did not go with them, for now but two days remained ere
the _Paul et Virginie_ must sail, and I was clinging to my last chance,
as the living waif of a wreck clings to his last raft or cable.

There was some joiners' work to do in the first classe, some bench or
desk to repair; holidays were often turned to account for the
performance of these operations, which could not be executed when the
rooms were filled with pupils. As I sat solitary, purposing to adjourn
to the garden and leave the coast clear, but too listless to fulfil my
own intent, I heard the workmen coming.

Foreign artisans and servants do everything by couples: I believe it
would take two Labassecourien carpenters to drive a nail. While tying
on my bonnet, which had hitherto h