As the poor girl left the chapel, there was a sweet serenity in her looks; and I was told that she would return home, and in all probability be calm and cheerful for days, and even weeks; in which time it was supposed that hope predominated in her mental malady; and that, when the dark side of her mind, as her friends call it, was about to turn up, it would be known by her neglecting her distaff or her lace, singing plaintive songs, and weeping in silence.

She passed on from the chapel without noticing the fete, but smiling and speaking to many as she passed.  I followed her with my eye as she descended the winding road towards Honfleur, leaning on her father’s arm.  “Heaven,” thought I, “has ever its store of balms for the hurt mind and wounded spirit, and may in time rear up this broken flower to be once more the pride and joy of the valley.  The very delusion in which the poor girl walks, may be one of those mists kindly diffused by Providence over the regions of thought, when they become too fruitful of misery.  The veil may gradually be raised which obscures the horizon of her mind, as she is enabled steadily and calmly to contemplate the sorrows at present hidden in mercy from her view.”

On my return from Paris, about a year afterwards, I turned off from the beaten route at Rouen, to revisit some of the most striking scenes of Lower Normandy.  Having passed through the lovely country of the Pays d’Auge, I reached Honfleur on a fine afternoon, intending to cross to Havre the next morning, and embark for England.  As I had no better way of passing the evening, I strolled up the hill to enjoy the fine prospect from the chapel of Notre Dame de Grace; and while there, I thought of inquiring after the fate of poor Annette Delarbre.  The priest who had told me her story was officiating at vespers, after which I accosted him, and learnt from him the remaining circumstances.  He told me that from the time I had seen her at the chapel, her disorder took a sudden turn for the worse, and her health rapidly declined.  Her cheerful intervals became shorter and less frequent, and attended with more incoherency.  She grew languid, silent, and moody in her melancholy; her form was wasted, her looks pale and disconsolate, and it was feared she would never recover.  She became impatient of all sounds of gayety, and was never so contented as when Eugene’s mother was near her.  The good woman watched over her with patient, yearning solicitude; and in seeking to beguile her sorrows, would half forget her own.  Sometimes, as she sat looking upon her pallid face, the tears would fill her eyes, which, when Annette perceived, she would anxiously wipe them away, and tell her not to grieve, for that Eugene would soon return; and then she would affect a forced gayety, as in former times, and sing a lively air; but a sudden recollection would come over her, and she would burst into tears, hang on the poor mother’s neck, and entreat her not to curse her for having destroyed her son.