as if it had been slipped in as an after-thought. I was not
slow to see that it was from the one person in the world who was of real
interest to me. Yet I had not the courage to open it. I walked up and
down the sandy beach, turning over this little piece of paper in my
hands, fearful that by reading it I might destroy the kind of desperate
calm my resolution had given me. Above all, I dreaded lest it might
contain expressions of thanks and enthusiastic joy, behind which I
should have divined the rapture of contented love for another.

"What can she be writing to me about?" I said to myself. "Why does she
write at all? I do not want her pity, still less her gratitude."

I felt tempted to throw this fateful little note into the sea. Once,
indeed I held it out over the waves, but I immediately pressed it to
my bosom, and kept it hidden there a few moments as if I had been a
believer in that second sight preached by the advocates of magnetism,
who assert that they can read with the organs of feeling and thought as
well as with their eyes.

At last I resolved to break the seal. The words I read were these:

"You have done well, Bernard; but I give you no thanks, as your absence
will cause me more suffering than I can tell. Still, go wherever honour
and love of truth call you; you will always be followed by my good
wishes and prayers. Return when your mission is accomplished; you will
find me neither married nor in a convent."

In this note she had inclosed the cornelian ring she had given me during
my illness and which I had returned on leaving Paris. I had a little
gold box made to hold this ring and note, and I wore it near my heart as
a talisman. Lafayette, who had been arrested in France by order of the
Government, which was opposed to his expedition, soon came and joined us
after escaping from prison. I had had time to make my preparations, and
I sailed full of melancholy, ambition, and hope.

You will not expect me to give an account of the American war. Once
again I will separate my existence from the events of history as I
relate my own adventures. Here, however, I shall suppress even my
personal adventures; in my memory these form a special chapter in which
Edmee plays the part of a Madonna, constantly invoked but invisible. I
cannot think that you would be the least interested in listening to a
portion of my narrative from which this angelic figure, the only one
worthy of your attention, firstly by reason of