tell how much I felt
relieved. I had spent the preceding period in such perplexing
indecision, that I felt my heart withering within me. Now all was clear.
My course was decided. I was in other hands than my own, and whatever
might be the result, I was no longer answerable for either good or ill
fortune. No human being who has not felt the trial almost the torment,
of being left to decide on the conduct which may make or mar him for
life, can conceive the depression into which it plunges the mind. From
this I was now relieved; I was wholly free; an established routine, a
vigorous profession, a regulated pursuit, and that pursuit one of the
most honourable nature, was suddenly prepared for me by the enclosure
upon my table. After again and again reading this simple but expressive
document, I threw myself on my bed, and attempted to forget it and the
world. But I could forget neither; my eyelids would not close; sleep had
gone from me. After a useless effort for composure, I rose, relighted my
lamp, and spent the rest of the night in writing to my relatives, to
Vincent, to Mordecai, and every one to whom I felt his majesty's
sign-manual a vindication of my whole career. There was still one cloud
that overhung my prospect, one gloomy and bitter remembrance: but this
cloud I had neither the power nor even the wish to dispel; this
remembrance was already a part of my being--to extinguish it was
impossible. I resolved to cherish it as a sacred recollection, to
combine it with the aspirations of my new pursuit, and render them thus
still nobler; to reserve it as a treasure inaccessible to the knowledge
of mankind, but to which I might return in my hours of discontent with
the world, and restore my sense of the beauty of mind and form which
might still exist in the shape of human nature.

Yet it may be justly supposed that I did not limit my feelings to this
lonely abstraction. I spent an anxious period in making enquiries for
the Marechale, in every quarter which offered the slightest probability
of discovering her abode. Though I had seen the announcement of
Clotilde's approaching marriage in the public journals, I had seen no
mention of its having taken place. My search was wholly unproductive.
The captivating duchess, who received me with the kindness which seemed
a part of her nature, while she joined me in my praises of the "young,
the lovely, and the accomplished Comtesse," "her dearest of friends,"
could tell me nothing