"I ventured to think that Evelina's love would be stronger than her
father's scruples, that her inflexible parents might yield to her

entreaties. Perhaps, who knows, her father had kept from her the
reasons of the refusal, which was so fatal to our love. I determined

to acquaint her with all the circumstances, and to make a final appeal
to her; and in fear and trembling, in grief and tears, my first and

last love-letter was written. To-day I can only dimly remember the
words dictated to me by my despair; but I must have told Evelina that

if she had dealt sincerely with me she could not and ought not to love
another, or how could her whole life be anything but a lie? she must

be false either to her future husband or to me. Could she refuse to
the lover, who had been so misjudged and hardly entreated, the

devotion which she would have shown him as her husband, if the
marriage which had already taken place in our hearts had been

outwardly solemnized? Was not this to fall from the ideal of womanly
virtue? What woman would not love to feel that the promises of the

heart were more sacred and binding than the chains forged by the law?
I defended my errors; and in my appeal to the purity of innocence, I

left nothing unsaid that could touch a noble and generous nature. But
as I am telling you everything, I will look for her answer and my

farewell letter," said Benassis, and he went up to his room in search
of it.

He returned in a few moments with a worn pocketbook; his hands
trembled with emotion as he drew from it some loose sheets.

"Here is the fatal letter," he said. "The girl who wrote those lines
little knew the value that I should set upon the scrap of paper that

holds her thoughts. This is the last cry that pain wrung from me," he
added, taking up a second letter; "I will lay it before you directly.

My old friend was the bearer of my letter of entreaty; he gave it to
her without her parents' knowledge, humbling his white hair to implore

Evelina to read and to reply to my appeal. This was her answer:
" 'Monsieur . . .' But lately I had been her 'beloved,' the innocent

name she had found by which to express her innocent love, and now she
called me MONSIEUR! . . . That one word told me everything. But listen

to the rest of the letter:
" 'Treachery on the part of one to whom her life was to be intrusted

is a bitter thing for a girl to discover; and yet I could not but
excuse you, we are so weak! Your letter touched me, but you must not

write to me again, the sight of your writing" target="_blank" title="n.笔迹；书法">handwriting gives me such
unbearable pain. We are parted for ever. I was carried away by your

reasoning; it extinguished all the harsh feelings that had risen up
against you in my soul. I had been so proud of your truth! But both of

us have found my father's reasoningirresistible. Yes, monsieur, I
ventured to plead for you. I did for you what I have never done

before, I overcame the greatest fears that I have ever known, and
acted almost against my nature. Even now I am yielding to your

entreaties, and doing wrong for your sake, in writing to you without
my father's knowledge. My mother knows that I am writing to you; her

indulgence in leaving me at liberty to be alone with you for a moment
has taught me the depth of her love for me, and strengthened my

determination to bow to the decree of my family, against which I had
almost rebelled. So I am writing to you, monsieur, for the first and

last time. You have my full and entire forgiveness for the troubles
that you have brought into my life. Yes, you are right; a first love

can never be forgotten. I am no longer an innocent girl; and, as an
honest woman, I can never marry another. What my future will be, I

know not therefore. Only you see, monsieur, that echoes of this year
that you have filled will never die away in my life. But I am in no

way accusing you. . . . "I shall always be beloved!" Why did you write
those words? Can they bring peace to the troubled soul of a lonely and

unhappy girl? Have you not already laid waste my future, giving me
memories which will never cease to revisit me? Henceforth I can only

give myself to God, but will He accept a broken heart? He has had some
purpose to fulfil in sending these afflictions to me; doubtless it was

His will that I should turn to Him, my only refuge here below. Nothing
remains to me here upon this earth. You have all a man's ambitions

wherewith to beguile your sorrows. I do not say this as a reproach; it
is a sort of religious consolation. If we both bear a grievous burden

at this moment, I think that my share of it is the heavier. He in whom
I have put my trust, and of whom you can feel no jealousy, has joined

our lives together, and He puts them asunder according to His will. I
have seen that your religious beliefs were not founded upon the pure

and living faith which alone enables us to bear our woes here below.
Monsieur, if God will vouchsafe to hear my fervent and ceaseless

prayers, He will cause His light to shine in your soul. Farewell, you
who should have been my guide, you whom once I had the right to call

"my beloved," no one can reproach me if I pray for you still. God
orders our days as it pleases Him. Perhaps you may be the first whom

He will call to himself; but if I am left alone in the world, then,
monsieur, intrust the care of the child to me.'

"This letter, so full of generous sentiments, disappointed my hopes,"
Benassis resumed, "so that at first I could think of nothing but my

misery; afterwards I welcomed the balm which, in her forgetfulness of
self, she had tried to pour into my wounds, but in my first despair I

wrote to her somewhat bitterly:
"Mademoiselle--that word alone will tell you that at your bidding I

renounce you. There is something indescribably sweet in obeying one we
love, who puts us to the torture. You are right. I acquiesce in my

condemnation. Once I slighted a girl's devotion; it is fitting,
therefore, that my love should be rejected to-day. But I little

thought that my punishment was to be dealt to me by the woman at whose
feet I had laid my life. I never expected that such harshness, perhaps

I should say, such rigid virtue, lurked in a heart that seemed to be
so loving and so tender. At this moment the full strength of my love

is revealed to me; it has survived the most terrible of all trials,
the scorn you have shown for me by severing without regret the ties

that bound us. Farewell for ever. There still remains to me the proud
humility of repentance; I will find some sphere of life where I can

expiate the errors to which you, the mediator between Heaven and me,
have shown no mercy. Perhaps God may be less inexorable. My

sufferings, sufferings full of the thought of you, shall be the
penance of a heart which will never be healed, which will bleed in

solitude. For a wounded heart--shadow and silence.
" 'No other image of love shall be engraven on my heart. Though I am

not a woman, I feel as you felt that when I said "I love you," it was
a vow for life. Yes, the words then spoken in the ear of "my beloved"

were not a lie; you would have a right to scorn me if I could change.
I shall never cease to worship you in my solitude. In spite of the

gulf set between us, you will still be the mainspring of all my
actions, and all the virtues are inspired by penitence and love.

Though you have filled my heart with bitterness, I shall never have
bitter thoughts of you; would it not be an ill beginning of the new

tasks that I have set myself if I did not purge out all the evil
leaven from my soul? Farewell, then, to the one heart that I love in

the world, a heart from which I am cast out. Never has more feeling
and more tenderness been expressed in a farewell, for is it not

fraught with the life and soul of one who can never hope again, and
must be henceforth as one dead? . . . Farewell. May peace be with you,

and may all the sorrow of our lot fall to me!' "
Benassis and Genestas looked at each other for a moment after reading

the two letters, each full of sad thoughts, of which neither spoke.
"As you see, this is only a rough copy of my last letter," said

Benassis; "it is all that remains to me to-day of my blighted hopes.
When I had sent the letter, I fell into an indescribable state of

depression. All the ties that hold one to life were bound together in
the hope of wedded happiness, which was henceforth lost to me for

ever. I had to bid farewell to the joys of a permitted and
acknowledged love, to all the generous ideas that had thronged up from

the depths of my heart. The prayers of a penitent soul that thirsted
for righteousness and for all things lovely and of good report, had

been rejected by these religious people. At first, the wildest
resolutions and most frantic thoughts surged through my mind, but

happily for me the sight of my son brought self-control. I felt all
the more strongly drawn towards him for the misfortunes of which he

was the innocent cause, and for which I had in reality only myself to