"He must be very tired," she said to herself, glancing at a dozen letters lying sealed upon the table. She read their addresses:"To Messrs. Farry, Breilmann,& Co., carriage-makers";"To Monsieur Buisson, tailor," etc.

"He has been settling all his affairs, so as to leave France at once," she thought. Her eyes fell upon two open letters. The words,"My dear Annette," at the head of one of them, blinded her for a moment. Her heart beat fast, her feet were nailed to the floor.

"His dear Annette! He loves! he is loved! No hope! What does he say to her?"

These thoughts rushed through her head and heart. She saw the words everywhere, even on the bricks of the floor, in letters of fire.

"Resign him already? No, no! I will not read the letter. I ought to go away--What if I do read it?"

She looked at Charles, then she gently took his head and placed it against the back of the chair; he let her do so, like a child which, though asleep, knows its mother's touch and receives, without awaking, her kisses and watchful care. Like a mother Eugenie raised the drooping hand, and like a mother she gently kissed the chestnut hair--"Dear Annette!" a demon shrieked the words in her ear.

"I am doing wrong; but I must read it, that letter," she said. She turned away her head, for her noble sense of honor reproached her. For the first time in her life good and evil struggled together in her heart. Up to that moment she had never had to blush for any action. Passion and curiosity triumphed. As she read each sentence her heart swelled more and more, and the keen glow which filled her being as she did so, only made the joys of first love still more precious.

  My dear Annette,--Nothing could ever have separated us but the   great misfortune which has now overwhelmed me, and which no human   foresight could have prevented. My father has killed himself; his   fortune and mine are irretrievably lost. I am orphaned at an age   when, through the nature of my education, I am still a child; and   yet I must lift myself as a man out of the abyss into which I am   plunged. I have just spent half the night in facing my position.   If I wish to leave France an honest man,--and there is no doubt of   that,--I have not a hundred francs of my own with which to try my   fate in the Indies or in America. Yes, my poor Anna, I must seek   my fortune in those deadly climates. Under those skies, they tell   me, I am sure to make it. As for remaining in Paris, I cannot do   so. Neith