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Parisians, the — Volume 12 by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton
page 36 of 108 (33%)
that in the past lay buried there, came over him a conviction of the
vanity of the human earth-bounded objects for which we burn or freeze,
far more absolute than had grown out of the worldly cynicism connected
with his worldly ambition. The sight of that face, associated with the
one pure romance of his reckless youth, the face of one so estranged, so
serenely aloft from all memories of youth, of romance, of passion, smote
him in the midst of the new hopes of the new career, as the look on the
skull of the woman he had so loved and so mourned, when disburied from
her grave, smote the brilliant noble who became the stern reformer of La
Trappe. And while thus gloomily meditating, the letter of the poor
Louise Duval was forgotten. She whose existence had so troubled, and
crossed, and partly marred the lives of others,--she, scarcely dead, and
already forgotten by her nearest kin. Well--had she not forgotten, put
wholly out of her mind, all that was due to those much nearer to her than
is an uncle to a niece?

The short, bitter, sunless day was advancing towards its decline before
Victor roused himself with a quick impatient start from his reverie, and
took forth the letter from the dead nun.

It began with expressions of gratitude, of joy at the thought that she
should see him again before she died, thank him for his past kindness,
and receive, she trusted, his assurance that he would attend to her last
remorseful injunctions. I pass over much that followed in the
explanation of events in her life sufficiently known to the reader. She
stated, as the strongest reason why she had refused the hand of Louvier,
her knowledge that she should in due time become a mother--a fact
concealed from Victor, secure that he would then urge her not to annul
her informal marriage, but rather insist on the ceremonies that would
render it valid. She touched briefly on her confidential intimacy with
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