ntmartre, having perished on the scaffold at the hands of the same
Comite de Salut Public which had numbered Mademoiselle V--'s affianced
among its members. The writer had felt her position much again of late,
since the renewal of the war, she said; and the letter wound up with a
fresh denunciation of the authors of their mutual bereavement and
subsequent troubles.

'Coming just then, its contents produced upon Mademoiselle V--- the
effect of a pail of water upon a somnambulist. What had she been doing
in betrothing herself to this man! Was she not making herself a
parricide after the event? At this crisis in her feelings her lover
called. He beheld her trembling, and, in reply to his question, she told
him of her scruples with impulsive candour.

'She had not intended to do this, but his attitude of tender command
coerced her into frankness. Thereupon he exhibited an agitation never
before apparent in him. He said, "But all that is past. You are the
symbol of Charity, and we are pledged to let bygones be."

'His words soothed her for the moment, but she was sadly silent, and he
went away.

'That night she saw (as she firmly believed to the end of her life) a
divinely sent vision. A procession of her lost relatives--father,
brother, uncle, cousin--seemed to cross her chamber between her bed and
the window, and when she endeavoured to trace their features she
perceived them to be headless, and that she had recognized them by their
familiar clothes only. In the morning she could not shake off the
effects of this appearance on her nerves. All that day she saw nothing
of her wooer, he being occupied in making arrangements for their
departure. It grew towards evening--the marriage eve; but, in spite of
his re-assuring visit, her sense of family duty waxed stronger now that
she was left alone. Yet, she asked herself, how could she, alone and
unprotected, go at this eleventh hour and reassert to an affianced
husband that she could not and would not marry him while admitting at the
same time that she loved him? The situation dismayed her. She had
relinquished her post as governess, and was staying temporarily in a room
near the coach-office, where she expected him to call in the morning to
carry out the business of their union and departure.

'Wisely or foolishly, Mademoiselle V--- came to a resolution: that her
only safety lay in flight. His contiguity influenced her too sensibly;
she could not reason. So