“I will pass over the agonizing scenes, the months of wretchedness which succeeded this separation, this sudden dissolution of the most sacred and endearing ties.  All attempts to discover De Courcy’s retreat were unavailing, though it was long before your mother could relinquish the delusive hope, that he would be again restored to her.  We returned to my father’s house; but there every thing reminded her of happier days, and served to increase her melancholy.  Your birth was the only event which reconciled her to life; but her health was then so precarious, we dared not flatter ourselves, that she would be long continued to you.  Her physicians recommended change of air, and I accompanied her to a convent on the borders of the Pyrenees, where she had passed a few years in early childhood; and she earnestly desired to spend her remaining days within its peaceful walls.

“The good nuns welcomed her to their humble retreat, in the midst of a wild and romantic solitude; and, with unwearied kindness sought to alleviate the sufferings of disease.  For three months, I watched unceasingly beside her; a heavenly resignation smoothed the bed of sickness, and her wearied spirit was gently loosed from earth, and prepared for its upward flight.  You were the last cord that bound her to a world which she had found so bankrupt in its promises, and this was too strong to be severed, but by the iron grasp of death.  As the moment of her departure approached, she expressed a wish to receive the last offices of religion; and a messenger was sent to a neighbouring monastery of Jesuits to request the attendance of a priest.  One of the brotherhood soon after entered the little cell, and the nuns, who were chanting around her bed, retired at his approach.

“I retreated unobserved, to a corner of the room, fearing she would not live through the last confession of her blameless life.  A dim lamp, from which she was carefully screened, shed a sickly gleam around the apartment; and, even in the deep silence of that awful hour, the low and labored whispers of her voice scarcely reached my ear.  Suddenly I was startled by a suppressed, but fervent exclamation from the monk, instantly followed by a faint cry from your mother’s lips.  I flew to the bed; she had raised herself from the pillow, her arms were extended, as in the act of supplication, and a celestial glow irradiated her dying features.  The priest stood in an attitude of eager attention:  his cowl was removed; and, judge of my sensations, when I recognized the countenance of De Courcy!”

“My father!” exclaimed Lucie; “that priest”—­

“Wait, and you shall know all;” interrupted Madame de la Tour.  “That priest was indeed your father; he had taken the vows of a rigid order, and Providence guided him to the death-bed of your mother.  I pass over the scene which followed; it is too hallowed for description.  Suffice it to say, the solemn confession of that dreadful moment convinced him of her innocence, and her last sufferings were soothed by mutual reconciliation and forgiveness.  Your father closed her eyes in their last sleep, and pressing you for an instant to his heart, rushed almost frantic from the convent.