e rolls containing
each one hundred louis d'or--a slight consolation for my heart, which was
almost broken by our cruel separation! During the last twenty-four hours
we could boast of no other eloquence but that which finds expression in
tears, in sobs, and in those hackneyed but energetic exclamations, which
two happy lovers are sure to address to reason, when in its sternness it
compels them to part from one another in the very height of their
felicity. Henriette did not endeavour to lure me with any hope for the
future, in order to allay my sorrow! Far from that, she said to me,

"Once we are parted by fate, my best and only friend, never enquire after
me, and, should chance throw you in my way, do not appear to know me."

She gave me a letter for M. d'Antoine, without asking me whether I
intended to go back to Parma, but, even if such had not been my
intention, I should have determined at once upon returning to that city.
She likewise entreated me not to leave Geneva until I had received a
letter which she promised to, write to me from the first stage on her
journey. She started at day-break, having with her a maid, a footman on
the box of the carriage, and being preceded by a courier on horseback. I
followed her with my eyes as long as I could, see her carriage, and I was
still standing on the same spot long after my eyes had lost sight of it.
All my thoughts were wrapped up in the beloved object I had lost for
ever. The world was a blank!

I went back to my room, ordered the waiter not to disturb me until the
return of the horses which had drawn Henriette's carriage, and I lay down
on my bed in the hope that sleep would for a time silence a grief which
tears could not drown.

The postillion who had driven Henriette did not return till the next day;
he had gone as far as Chatillon. He brought me a letter in which I found
one single word: Adieu! He told me that they had reached Chatillon
without accident, and that the lady had immediately continued her journey
towards Lyons. As I could not leave Geneva until the following day, I
spent alone in my room some of the most melancholy hours of my life. I
saw on one of the panes of glass of a window these words which she had
traced with the point of a diamond I had given her: "You will forget
Henriette." That prophecy was not likely to afford me any consolation.
But had she attached its full meaning to the word "forget?" No; she could
only mean that time would at last h