ne of those little notes which, when she was in the
convent, she used to sign Enfant de Marie. It begged me again to
pray earnestly for her that she might not fail in the fulfilment of
her new duties. It seems hard, does it not? Let us hope that
Monsieur de Talbrun, on his part, may not find that his new life
rather wearies him! Do you know what should have been Giselle's
fate--since she has a mania about people being thoroughly acquainted
before marriage? What would two or three years more or less have
mattered? She would have made an admirable wife for a sailor; she
would have spent the months of your absence kneeling before the
altar; she would have multiplied the lamentations and the
tendernesses of your excellent mother. I have been thinking this
ever since the wedding-day--a very sad day, after all.

"But how I have let my pen run on. I shall have to put on two
stamps, notwithstanding my thin paper. But then you have plenty of
time to read on board-ship, and this account may amuse you. Make
haste and thank me for it.

"Your old friend,

"JACQUELINE."

Amuse him! How could he be amused by so great an insult? What! thank her
for giving him over even in thought to Giselle or to anybody? Oh, how
wicked, how ungrateful, how unworthy!

The six pages of foreign-post paper were crumpled up by his angry
fingers. Fred tore them with his teeth, and finally made them into a
ball which he flung into the sea, hating himself for having been so
foolish as to let himself be caught by the first lines, as a foolish
fish snaps at the bait, when, apropos to the church in which she would
like to be married, she had added "But we should have to be content with
Saint-Augustin."

Those words had delighted him as if they had really been meant for
himself and Jacqueline. This promise for the future, that seemed to
escape involuntarily from her pen, had made him find all the rest of her
letter piquant and amusing. As he read, his mind had reverted to that
little phrase which he now found he had interpreted wrongly. What a
fall! How his hopes now crumbled under his feet! She must have done it
on purpose--but no, he need not blacken her! She had written without
thought, without purpose, in high spirits; she wanted to be witty, to be
droll, to write gossip without any reference to him to whom her letter
was addressed. That we who some day would make