There was one other subject on which he had made up his mind to speak, but on which even he, calm and collected as he was, found it difficult to express himself; he had, however, determined that it was his duty to do so, and though the words almost refused to come at his bidding, still he went through his task.

“You will be desolate for a time, Victorine, when I shall have left you,” said he.

She answered him only by a look, but that look was so full of misery—­of misery, blended with inexpressible love—­that no one seeing her, could have doubted that she would indeed be desolate when he was gone.

“We have loved each other too well to part easily,” he continued, “and, for a time, the world will all be a weary blank to you.  May God, who knows how to pour a balm into every wound, which in his mercy He inflicts, grant that that time may not be long!  Listen to me patiently, love.  It is a strong sense of duty which makes me pain you; my memory will always be dear to you; but do not let a vain, a foolish, a wicked regret counteract the purpose for which God has placed you here.  You are very young, dearest, you have, probably, yet many years to live; and it would multiply my grief at leaving you tenfold, if I thought that your hopes of happiness in this world were to be buried in the grave with me.  No, love, bear with me,” he said, for she tried to stop him.  “The pain which I give you now, may prevent much grief to you hereafter.  Remember, Victorine, that should these evil days pass by—­should you ever again be restored to peace and tranquil life, my earnest, my last, my solemn prayer to you is, that my memory may not prevent your future marriage.”

She was still kneeling by his side, and with her face upturned and her hands clasped together, she now implored him to stop.  She uttered no dissent, she made no protestations; but she beseeched him, by their long and tender love, by all the common ties which bound them together, to cease to speak on a subject which was so agonising.

“I have done, love,” he said; “and I know that you will not think lightly of a prayer which I have made to you in so serious a manner.”

De Lescure had expressed the same wish to his wife on former occasions, which, however, had, of course, been less solemn; and then his wife had answered him with a full, but not grieving heart.  “Had our lot,” he once said, “been cast in an Indian village, the prejudices of the country would have required you to submit to a horrid, torturing death upon my tomb.  The prejudices of Christian lands, which attribute blame to the wife who does not yield herself a living sacrifice to a life of desolation from a false regard to her husband’s memory, are, if not so horrid, every whit as unreasonable; such a sentiment is an attempt to counteract God’s beneficence, who cures the wounds which he inflicts.”