told me of your relations with Lady Dudley, and your return to Clochegourde.  I wished to go to Paris; murder was in my heart; I desired that woman’s death; I was indifferent to my children.  Prayer, which had hitherto been to me a balm, was now without influence on my soul.  Jealousy made the breach through which death has entered.  And yet I have kept a placid brow.  Yes, that period of struggle was a secret between God and myself.  After your return and when I saw that I was loved, even as I loved you, that nature had betrayed me and not your thought, I wished to live,—­it was then too late!  God had taken me under His protection, filled no doubt with pity for a being true with herself, true with Him, whose sufferings had often led her to the gates of the sanctuary.

My beloved!  God has judged me, Monsieur de Mortsauf will pardon me, but you—­will you be merciful?  Will you listen to this voice which now issues from my tomb?  Will you repair the evils of which we are equally guilty?—­you, perhaps, less than I. You know what I wish to ask of you.  Be to Monsieur de Mortsauf what a sister of charity is to a sick man; listen to him, love him—­no one loves him.  Interpose between him and his children as I have done.  Your task will not be a long one.  Jacques will soon leave home to be in Paris near his grandfather, and you have long promised me to guide him through the dangers of that life.  As for Madeleine, she will marry; I pray that you may please her.  She is all myself, but stronger; she has the will in which I am lacking; the energy necessary for the companion of a man whose career destines him to the storms of political life; she is clever and perceptive.  If your lives are united she will be happier than her mother.  By acquiring the right to continue my work at Clochegourde you will blot out the faults I have not sufficiently expiated, though they are pardoned in heaven and also on earth, for he is generous and will forgive me.  You see I am ever selfish; is it not the proof of a despotic love?  I wish you to still love me in mine.  Unable to be yours in life, I bequeath to you my thoughts and also my duties.  If you do not wish to marry Madeleine you will at least seek the repose of my soul by making Monsieur de Mortsauf as happy as he ever can be.

Farewell, dear child of my heart; this is the farewell of a mind absolutely sane, still full of life; the farewell of a spirit on which thou hast shed too many and too great joys to suffer thee to feel remorse for the catastrophe they have caused.  I use that word “catastrophe” thinking of you and how you love me; as for me, I reach the haven of my rest, sacrificed to duty and not without regret—­ah!  I tremble at that thought.  God knows better than I whether I have fulfilled his holy laws in accordance with their spirit.  Often, no doubt, I have tottered, but I have not fallen; the most potent cause of my wrong-doing lay in the grandeur of the seductions that encompassed me.  The Lord will behold me trembling when I enter His presence as though I had succumbed.  Farewell again, a long farewell like that I gave last night to our dear valley, where I soon shall rest and where you will often—­will you not?—­return.

Henriette.