“What can I say to you, dear Antoinette?  I will say that I love you; that affection, love, true love, the joy of living in a heart all ours,—­wholly ours, without one reservation,—­is so rare, so difficult to find, that I once doubted you; I put you to cruel tests.  But to-day I love and trust you with all the powers of my soul.  If you will follow me I will listen throughout life to no voice but thine.  I will look on no face—­”

“Silence, Armand! you shorten the sole moments which are given to us to see each other here below.”

“Antoinette! will you follow me?”

“I never leave you.  I live in your heart—­but with another power than that of earthly pleasure, or vanity, or selfish joy.  I live here for you, pale and faded, in the bosom of God.  If God is just, you will be happy.”

“Phrases! you give me phrases!  But if I will to have you pale and faded,—­if I cannot be happy unless you are with me?  What! will you forever place duties before my love?  Shall I never be above all things else in your heart?  In the past you put the world, or self—­I know not what—­above me; to-day it is God, it is my salvation.  In this Sister Theresa I recognize the duchess; ignorant of the joys of love, unfeeling beneath a pretense of tenderness!  You do not love me! you never loved me!—­”

“Oh, my brother!—­”

“You will not leave this tomb.  You love my soul, you say:  well! you shall destroy it forever and ever.  I will kill myself—­”

“My Mother!” cried the nun, “I have lied to you; this man is my lover.”

The curtain fell.  The general, stunned, heard the doors close with violence.

“She loves me still!” he cried, comprehending all that was revealed in the cry of the nun.  “I will find means to carry her away!”

He left the island immediately, and returned to France.

Translation copyrighted by Roberts Brothers.

‘AN EPISODE UNDER THE TERROR’

On the 22d of January, 1793, towards eight o’clock in the evening, an old gentlewoman came down the sharp declivity of the Faubourg Saint-Martin, which ends near the church of Saint-Laurent in Paris.  Snow had fallen throughout the day, so that footfalls could be scarcely heard.  The streets were deserted.  The natural fear inspired by such stillness was deepened by the terror to which all France was then a prey.

The old lady had met no one.  Her failing sight hindered her from perceiving in the distance a few pedestrians, sparsely scattered like shadows, along the broad road of the faubourg.  She was walking bravely through the solitude as if her age were a talisman to guard her from danger; but after passing the Rue des Morts she fancied that she heard the firm, heavy tread of a man coming behind her.  The thought seized her mind that she had been listening to it unconsciously for some time.  Terrified at the idea of being followed, she tried to walk faster to reach a lighted shop-window, and settle the doubt which