Conscience -- Volume 4

oon. When he opened the door with his key he was sur

e said to himself, "

d her at her easel; but he did not see her, and the ea

y; he knocked louder a second time, and after waiting a moment he

, then returning to the vestibu

one there. But as he looked about him, he saw Phillis's letter on his desk, and his hea

he bear these twenty years? What efforts must I not make to prove to him that he should not abandon himself to despair, and that life often offers the remedy, compassion to the most profound, to the most unjust human sorrows? How can I make him believe that? How lead his poor heart, closed to confidence, to feeling, to the tears that alone can relieve it? God who has so sorely tried me, without doubt will come to my aid, and will inspire me with words of consolation, will show me the path to follow, and give me the strength to persevere. Have I not already to thank Him for being alone in the world, outside of a mother and brother who will not betray me? I have no children, and I am spared the terror of seeing a soul growing in evil, an intelligence escaping from me to follow the path of infamy or dishonor. I leave, then, as I came. I was a poor girl, I go away a poor woman. I have taken the clothing and personal effects that I brought into our common home, nothing that was bought with your money; and I forbid you to interfere with my wish in this question of material things, as well as in my resolution to fly from you. Nothing can ever reunite us; nothing shall reunite us, no consideration, no necessity. I reject the past, this guilty past, the responsibility of which weighs so heavily on my conscience, and I should like to lose the memory of the detested time. It would be impossible for me to accept the struggle, or supplications, if you think it expedient to make any. I have cut our bonds, and hereafter we shall be as far apart as if one of us were dead, or even farther. Have no scruples,

Arrived at the end he looked about him vaguely. His chair was near his desk; he let him

lo

he deepening twilight, men with grave looks and dark clothes-members of the Academy of Medicine-the Tuesday sitting over, issued from the porch, and entered their carriages. Some of them walked alone, briskly, in a great hurry; others demonstrated a skilful tardiness, stopping to talk politely to a journalist, and to give him notes of the day's meeting, o

lighted by pale blue eyes with a strange expression, both hard and desolate at the same time. He advanced alone, and his heavy gait and dragging s

ed to the boulevard, where he opened the door of a coups whose interior showed a complete am

out to enter, a v

upils, who had recently become a p

it?" aske

me in a curious case of spasms, wher

he

, a poor woman. What d

t urg

es

nce. Give the address to my

m, accompanied by two young men with whom he discoursed in a loud tone while gesticulating. People turned to loo

hands, and Saniel, taking off his ha

said, "for I went to your offic

ord beforehand? If you nee

oom and several patients came after me-a young woman who appeared to suffer cruelly, an old lady who was extremely anxious, and lastly a man who had some nervous disease that would not permit him to

t do I owe the ho

anied Brigard, and Saniel's

nce; friend Saniel has originality and force; he has succeeded brilliantly; but these qualities are not exactly academic. I was deceived. You have broken

ng?

urself stronger than life; in

nds, he went on his way with his

octor appro

original

n!" was the

ITOR'S B

so much the better

judge those w

not bear

alone because

that our souls a

we do not