Alas! what could I do for your happiness?  Nothing.  Do not betray that infinite love which contents itself with the duties of motherhood.  Ah!  I think her very fortunate, my Camille!  She can well afford to forgive your feeling for poor Beatrix; women of her age are indulgent to such fancies.  When they are sure of being loved, they will pardon a passing infidelity; in fact, it is often one of their keenest pleasures to triumph over a younger rival.  Camille is above such women, and that remark does not refer to her; but I make it to ease your mind.

I have studied Camille closely; she is, to my eyes, one of the greatest women of our age.  She has mind and she has goodness,—­two qualities almost irreconcilable in woman; she is generous and simple,—­two other grandeurs seldom found together in our sex.  I have seen in the depths of her soul such treasures that the beautiful line of Dante on eternal happiness, which I heard her interpreting to you the other day, “Senza brama sicura ricchezza,” seems as if made for her.  She has talked to me of her career; she has related her life, showing me how love, that object of our prayers, our dreams, has ever eluded her.  I replied that she seemed to me an instance of the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of uniting in one person two great glories.

You, Calyste, are one of the angelic souls whose mate it seems impossible to find; but Camille will obtain for you, even if she dies in doing so, the hand of some young girl with whom you can make a happy home.

For myself, I hold out to you a friendly hand, and I count, not on your heart, but on your mind, to make you in future a brother to me, as I shall be a sister to you; and I desire that this letter may terminate a correspondence which, between Les Touches and Guerande, is rather absurd.

Beatrix de Casteran.

The baroness, stirred to the depths of her soul by the strange exhibitions and the rapid changes of her boy’s emotions, could no longer sit quietly at her work in the ancient hall.  After looking at Calyste from time to time, she finally rose and came to him in a manner that was humble, and yet bold; she wanted him to grant a favor which she felt she had a right to demand.

“Well,” she said, trembling, and looking at the letter, but not directly asking for it.

Calyste read it aloud to her.  And these two noble souls, so simple, so guileless, saw nothing in that wily and treacherous epistle of the malice or the snares which the marquise had written into it.

“She is a noble woman, a grand woman!” said the baroness, with moistened eyes.  “I will pray to God for her.  I did not know that a woman could abandon her husband and child, and yet preserve a soul so virtuous.  She is indeed worthy of pardon.”

“Have I not every reason to adore her?” cried Calyste.