With this object I went to Paris and took rooms in a house exactly opposite the one which Gaston visits.  Thence I saw him with my own eyes enter the courtyard on horseback.  Too soon a ghastly fact forced itself on me.  This Englishwoman, who seems to me about thirty-six, is known as Mme. Gaston.  This discovery was my deathblow.

I saw him next walking to the Tuileries with a couple of children.  Oh! my dear, two children, the living images of Gaston!  The likeness is so strong that it bears scandal on the face of it.  And what pretty children! in their handsome English costumes!  She is the mother of his children.  Here is the key to the whole mystery.

The woman herself might be a Greek statue, stepped down from some monument.  Cold and white as marble, she moves sedately with a mother’s pride.  She is undeniably beautiful but heavy as a man-of-war.  There is no breeding or distinction about her; nothing of the English lady.  Probably she is a farmer’s daughter from some wretched and remote country village, or, it may be, the eleventh child of some poor clergyman!

I reached home, after a miserable journey, during which all sorts of fiendish thoughts had me at their mercy, with hardly any life left in me.  Was she married?  Did he know her before our marriage?  Had she been deserted by some rich man, whose mistress she was, and thus thrown back upon Gaston’s hands?  Conjectures without end flitted through my brain, as though conjecture were needed in the presence of the children.

The next day I returned to Paris, and by a free use of my purse extracted from the porter the information that Mme. Gaston was legally married.

His reply to my question took the form, “Yes, Miss.”

July 15th.

My dear, my love for Gaston is stronger than ever since that morning, and he has every appearance of being still more deeply in love.  He is so young!  A score of times it has been on my lips, when we rise in the morning, to say, “Then you love me better than the lady of the Rue de la Ville l’Eveque?” But I dare not explain to myself why the words are checked on my tongue.

“Are you very fond of children?” I asked.

“Oh, yes!” was his reply; “but children will come!”

“What makes you think so?”

“I have consulted the best doctors, and they agree in advising me to travel for a couple of months.”

“Gaston,” I said, “if love in absence had been possible for me, do you suppose I should ever have left the convent?”

He laughed; but as for me, dear, the word “travel” pierced my heart.  Rather, far rather, would I leap from the top of the house than be rolled down the staircase, step by step.—­Farewell, my sweetheart.  I have arranged for my death to be easy and without horrors, but certain.  I made my will yesterday.  You can come to me now, the prohibition is removed.  Come, then, and receive my last farewell.  I will not die by inches; my death, like my life, shall bear the impress of dignity and grace.