At the sight of my uncle, she disengaged herself quickly, and ran to him,
crying out:

"Ah! come in--come in! It is he that I thought was dead: it is Julien;
it is my betrothed!"

Maurice tottered, and drew back. A single word had told him all!

It seemed to him as if the ground shook and his heart was about to break;
but the same voice that he had heard by his mother's deathbed again
sounded in his ears, and he soon recovered himself. God was still his
friend!

He himself accompanied the newly-married pair on the road when they left
the town, and, after wishing them all the happiness which was denied to
him, he returned with resignation to the old house in the suburb.

It was there that he ended his life, forsaken by men, but not as he said
by the Father which is in heaven. He felt His presence everywhere; it
was to him in the place of all else. When he died, it was with a smile,
and like an exile setting out for his own country. He who had consoled
him in poverty and ill-health, when he was suffering from injustice and
forsaken by all, had made death a gain and blessing to him.


Eight o'clock.--All I have just written has pained me! Till now I have
looked into life for instruction how to live. Is it then true that human
maxims are not always sufficient? that beyond goodness, prudence,
moderation, humility, self-sacrifice itself, there is one great truth,