“I have performed my promise,” he writes “and I may say for myself that I spoke with every needful precaution.  The result a little startled me.  Romayne was not merely unprepared to hear of the birth of his child—­he was physically and morally incapable of sustaining the shock of the disclosure.  For the moment, I thought he had been seized with a fit of catalepsy.  He moved, however, when I tried to take his hand to feel the pulse—­shrinking back in his chair, and feebly signing to me to leave him.  I committed him to the care of his servant.  The next day I received a letter from one of his priestly colleagues, informing me that he was slowly recovering after the shock that I had inflicted, and requesting me to hold no further communication with him, either personally or by letter.  I wish I could have sent you a more favorable report of my interference in this painful matter.  Perhaps you or your daughter may hear from him.”

July 4-9.—­No letter has been received.  Mrs. Eyrecourt is uneasy.  Stella, on the contrary, seems to be relieved.

July 10.—­A letter has arrived from London, addressed to Stella by Romayne’s English lawyers.  The income which Mrs. Romayne has refused for herself is to be legally settled on her child.  Technical particulars follow, which it is needless to repeat here.

By return of post, Stella has answered the lawyers, declaring that, so long as she lives, and has any influence over her son, he shall not touch the offered income.  Mrs. Eyrecourt, Monsieur and Madame Villeray—­and even Matilda—­entreated her not to send the letter.  To my thinking, Stella acted with becoming spirit.  Though there is no entail, still Vange Abbey is morally the boy’s birthright—­it is a cruel wrong to offer him anything else.

July 11.—­For the second time I have proposed to leave St. Germain.  The presence of the third person, whenever I am in her company, is becoming unendurable to me.  She still uses her influence to defer my departure.  “Nobody sympathizes with me,” she said, “but you.”

I am failing to keep my promise to myself, not to write about myself.  But there is some little excuse this time.  For the relief of my own conscience, I may surely place it on record that I have tried to do what is right.  It is not my fault if I remain at St. Germain, insensible to Madame Villeray’s warning.

Ninth Extract.

September 13.—­Terrible news from Rome of the Jesuit Mission to Arizona.

The Indians have made a night attack on the new mission-house.  The building is burned to the ground, and the missionaries have been massacred—­with the exception of two priests, carried away captive.  The names of the priests are not known.  News of the atrocity has been delayed four months on its way to Europe, owing partly to the civil war in the United States, and partly to disturbances in Central America.

Looking at the Times (which we receive regularly at St. Germain), I found this statement confirmed in a short paragraph—­but here also the names of the two prisoners failed to appear.