"Secrecy would be misplaced with the friend of the dead. Therefore,
will I speak to you of things which I have never uttered to a human
being until now. Jules D'Effernay is nearly related to me. We knew
each other in the Netherlands, where our estates joined. The boy loved
me already with a love that amounted to passion; this love was my
father's greatest joy, for there was an old and crying injustice which
the ancestors of D'Effernay had suffered from ours, that could alone,
he thought, be made up by the marriage of the only children of the two
branches. So we were destined for each other almost from our cradles;
and I was content it should be so, for Jules's handsome face and
decided preference for me were agreeable to me, although I felt no
great affection for him. We were separated: Jules traveled in France,
England, and America, and made money as a merchant, which profession
he had taken up suddenly. My father, who had a place under government,
left his country in consequence of political troubles, and came into
this part of the world where some distant relations of my mother's
lived. He liked the neighborhood; he bought land; we lived very
happily; I was quite contented in Jules's absence; I had no yearning
of the heart toward him, yet I thought kindly of him, and troubled
myself little about my future. Then--then I learned to know your
friend. Oh, then! I felt, when I looked upon him, when I listened to
him, when we conversed together, I felt, I acknowledged that there
might be happiness on earth, of which I had hitherto never dreamed.
Then I loved for the first time, ardently, passionately, and was
beloved in return. Acquainted with the family engagements, he did not
dare openly to proclaim his love, and I knew I ought not to foster
the feeling; but, alas! how seldom does passion listen to the voice
of reason and of duty. Your friend and I met in secret; in secret we
plighted our troth, and exchanged those rings, and hoped and believed