strangle me. Could I but have this friend, my life, so precious to
these children, might be prolonged until Jacques had grown to manhood.
But that is selfish! The Laura of Petrarch cannot be lived again. I
must die at my post, like a soldier, friendless. My confessor is
harsh, austere, and--my aunt is dead."

Two large tears filled her eyes, gleamed in the moonlight, and rolled
down her cheeks; but I stretched my hand in time to catch them, and I
drank them with an avidity excited by her words, by the thought of
those ten years of secret woe, of wasted feelings, of constant care,
of ceaseless dread--years of the lofty heroism of her sex. She looked
at me with gentle stupefaction.

"It is the first communion of love," I said. "Yes, I am now a sharer
of your sorrows. I am united to your soul as our souls are united to
Christ in the sacrament. To love, even without hope, is happiness. Ah!
what woman on earth could give me a joy equal to that of receiving
your tears! I accept the contract which must end in suffering to
myself. I give myself to you with no ulterior thought. I will be to
you that which you will me to be--"

She stopped me with a motion of her hand, and said in her deep voice,
"I consent to this agreement if you will promise never to tighten the
bonds which bind us together."

"Yes," I said; "but the less you grant the more evidence of possession
I ought to have."

"You begin by distrusting me," she replied, with an expression of
melancholy doubt.