In two days from now I shall be Mme. Gaston.  My God! is it fitting a Christian so to love mortal man?

“Well, at least you have the law with you,” was the comment of my man of business, who is to be one of my witnesses, and who exclaimed, on discovering why my property was to be realized, “I am losing a client!”

And you, my sweetheart (whom I dare no longer call my loved one), may you not cry, “I am losing a sister?”

My sweet, address when you write in future to Mme. Gaston, Poste Restante, Versailles.  We shall send there every day for letters.  I don’t want to be known to the country people, and we shall get our provisions from Paris.  In this way I hope we may guard the secret of our lives.  Nobody has been seen in the place during the years spent in preparing our retreat; and the purchase was made in the troubled period which followed the revolution of July.  The only person who has shown himself here is the architect; he alone is known, and he will not return.

Farewell.  As I write this word, I know not whether my heart is fuller of grief or joy.  That proves, does it not, that the pain of losing you equals my love for Gaston?

XLIX

MARIE GASTON TO DANIEL D’ARTHEZ
October 1833.

My Dear Daniel,—­I need two witnesses for my marriage.  I beg of you to come to-morrow evening for this purpose, bringing with you our worthy and honored friend, Joseph Bridau.  She who is to be my wife, with an instinctive divination of my dearest wishes, has declared her intention of living far from the world in complete retirement.  You, who have done so much to lighten my penury, have been left in ignorance of my love; but you will understand that absolute secrecy was essential.

This will explain to you why it is that, for the last year, we have seen so little of each other.  On the morrow of my wedding we shall be parted for a long time; but, Daniel, you are of stuff to understand me.  Friendship can subsist in the absence of the friend.  There may be times when I shall want you badly, but I shall not see you, at least not in my own house.  Here again she has forestalled our wishes.  She has sacrificed to me her intimacy with a friend of her childhood, who has been a sister to her.  For her sake, then, I also must relinquish my comrade!

From this fact alone you will divine that ours is no mere passing fancy, but love, absolute, perfect, godlike; love based upon the fullest knowledge that can bind two hearts in sympathy.  To me it is a perpetual spring of purest delight.