the fraternal light.  Before departing, I should at least catch a glimpse of the mysterious being, who, probably unconsciously, had occupied so many of my restless thoughts.  I could not control a sad smile at the thought of the disenchantment that awaited me on the morrow.  I passed in review the faces which were likely to appear at that window, and as the absurd is mixed with almost every situation in life, I declare that this bewildering question occurred to me:  “Suppose it should be Lady Penock?”

I slept little, and arose at day-break.  I was restless without daring to acknowledge to myself the cause.  It would have mortified me to have to confess that there was room beside my grief for a childish curiosity, a poetical fancy.  What is man’s heart made of?  He bemoans himself, wraps a cere-cloth around him and prepares to die, and a flitting bird or a shining light suffices to divert him.  I watched the sun redden the house-tops.  Paris still slept; no sound broke the stillness of the slumbering city, but the distant roll of the early carts over the stones.  I looked long at the dear garret, which I saw for the first time in the eye of day.  The window had neither shutter nor blind, but a double rose-colored curtain hung before it, mingling its tint with that of the rising sun.  That window, with neither plants nor running vines to ornament it, had an air of refinement that charmed me.  The house itself looked honest.  I wrote several letters to shorten the slow hours which wearied my patience.  Every shutter that opened startled me, and sent the blood quickly back to my heart.  My reason revolted against suck childishness; but in spite of it, something within me refused to laugh at my folly.

After some hours, I caught a glimpse of a hand furtively drawing aside the rose-colored curtains.  That timid hand could only belong to a woman; a man would have drawn them back unceremoniously.  She must, likewise, be a young woman; the shade of the curtains indicated it.  Evidently, only a young woman would put pink curtains before a garret-window.  Whereupon I recalled to mind the little room where I had bade adieu to Louise before leaving Richeport.  I lived over again the scene in that poetic nook; again I saw Louise as she appeared to me at that last interview, pale, agitated, shedding silent tears which she did not attempt to conceal.

At this remembrance my grief burst all bounds, and spent itself in imprecations against Edgar and against myself.  I sat a long time, with my face buried in my hands, in mournful contemplation of an invisible image.  Ah! unhappy man, I exclaimed, in my despair, why did you leave her?  God offered you happiness and you refused it!  She stood there, before you, trembling, desperate, her eyes bathed in tears, awaiting but one word to sink in your arms, and that word you refused to utter, cowardly fleeing from her!  It is now your turn to weep, unfortunate wretch!  Your life, which has but begun, is now ended, and you will not even have the supreme consolation of melancholy regrets, for the sting of remorse will for ever remain in your wound; you will be pursued to your dying day by the phantom of a felicity which you would not seize!