falling, resounded on the coffin, and Henri shuddered. The crowd
gradually dispersed; Guillaume and Isabelle alone remained beside the
tomb; Henri approached it, and Isabelle observing him, with a forced
smile, said, "Did you know her? I have seen you follow the funeral train
with apparent interest, and now I behold you in tears; are you a
relation, friend, or only even a native of the same place?" Henri
listened to these questions with great surprise; "I scarcely understand
you," he at length replied; "I am merely a traveller; but the deceased
was, doubtless, _your_ friend?"--"Yes, my best, my dearest friend;
yet our friendship was doomed to be of very short continuance. I was
not at all acquainted with her until, about three months ago, she
came to reside with my father, who is a physician, and to whose care
her relations, when aware of her forlorn state, confided her." "Her
relations," remarked Henri, "did not seem to be much affected; they
appeared, indeed, quite resigned to their loss." "Her relations!"
replied Isabelle, "she had none here; she was a stranger, and my father
attended as chief mourner; he lamented her loss, but Marie was not his
daughter, although I _myself_ loved her as a sister." "Marie!" she
was called Marie! but what was her family-name? Often shall I think of
her unhappy destiny. "Marie was only a name that she adopted, and we
called her, because she could never bear to hear her own." "Isabelle,"
said she to me, almost at our first meeting, "never name me as he who
has destroyed me named me; never, I entreat you, call me _dear
Louise_." "Louise!" exclaimed Henri, growing pale as death; "Louise!"
"Yes, Louise Courtin, of Verny!" No sooner had Isabelle uttered these
words, than she beheld the young traveller fall senseless beside the
grave, feebly repeating the name of Louise. Isabelle, in alarm, called
her brother to her assistance; they raised up the stranger, who opened
his eyes for a moment, and again muttered the same words. "Gracious
Providence!" exclaimed the affrighted girl, "it is--it must be--Henri!"