I am writing this tail to my letter while they are putting out my dress for dinner.  We shall be married at midnight at the Church of Sainte-Valere, after a very gay evening.  I confess that my fears give me a martyr-like and modest air to which I have no right, but which will be admired—­why, I cannot conceive.  I am delighted to see that poor Felipe is every whit as timorous as I am; society grates on him, he is like a bat in a glass shop.

“Thank Heaven, the day won’t last for ever!” he whispered to me in all innocence.

In his bashfulness and timidity he would have liked to have no one there.

The Sardinian ambassador, when he came to sign the contract, took me aside in order to present me with a pearl necklace, linked together by six splendid diamonds—­a gift from my sister-in-law, the Duchess de Soria.  Along with the necklace was a sapphire bracelet, on the under side of which were engraved the words, “Though unknown, beloved.”  Two charming letters came with these presents, which, however, I could not accept without consulting Felipe.

“For,” I said, “I should not like to see you wearing ornaments that came from any one but me.”

He kissed my hand, quite moved, and replied: 

“Wear them for the sake of the inscription, and also for the kind feeling, which is sincere.”

Saturday evening.

Here, then, my poor Renee, are the last words of your girl friend.  After the midnight Mass, we set off for an estate which Felipe, with kind thought for me, has bought in Nivernais, on the way to Provence.  Already my name is Louise de Macumer, but I leave Paris in a few hours as Louise de Chaulieu.  However I am called, there will never be for you but one Louise.

XXVII

THE SAME TO THE SAME
October.

I have not written to you, dear, since our marriage, nearly eight months ago.  And not a line from you!  Madame, you are inexcusable.

To begin with, we set off in a post-chaise for the Castle of Chantepleurs, the property which Macumer has bought in Nivernais.  It stands on the banks of the Loire, sixty leagues from Paris.  Our servants, with the exception of my maid, were there before us, and we arrived, after a very rapid journey, the next evening.  I slept all the way from Paris to beyond Montargis.  My lord and master put his arm round me and pillowed my head on his shoulder, upon an arrangement of handkerchiefs.  This was the one liberty he took; and the almost motherly tenderness which got the better of his drowsiness, touched me strangely.  I fell asleep then under the fire of his eyes, and awoke to find them still blazing; the passionate gaze remained unchanged, but what thoughts had come and gone meanwhile!  Twice he had kissed me on the forehead.