"Canst thou not do," he said to himself, "what these have done? Timid youths and tender maidens have abandoned the deceitful joys of time for the imperishable goods of eternity; canst thou not do likewise? Were these lions, and art thou a timid deer?" Thus this illustrious penitent, who was one of the brightest lights of Christianity, has made known to us the triumph he gained in his internal struggles by the examples of his predecessors in the brave band of penitents who shed a luminous ray on the pitchy darkness of his path. The life of St. Anthony, written by St. Athanasius, produced such a sensation in the Christian world that the desolate caverns of Thebias were not able to receive all who wished to imitate that holy solitary. Roman matrons were then seen to create for themselves a solitude in the heart of their luxurious capital; offices of the palace, bedizened in purple and gold, deserted the court, amid the rejoicings of a festival, for the date-tree and the brackish rivulets of Upper Egypt! Where, then, our error in drawing from the archives of the past another beautiful and thrilling tale of repentance which may fall with cheerful rays of encouragement on the soul engaged in the fierce combat with self? To us the simple, touching story of Alvira has brought a charm and a balm. Seeking to impart to others its interest, its amusement, and its moral, we cast it afloat on the sea of literature, to meet, probably, a premature grave in this age of irreligion and presumptuous denial of the necessities of penance. Contents Chapter I. Page Paris One Hundred and Fifty Years Ago . . . . . . 5 Chapter II. The Usurer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Chapter III. A Mixed Marriage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Chapter IV. A Youth Trained in the Way he should Walk . . . . 18 Chapter V. Our Heroines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Chapter VI. A Secret Revealed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Chapter VII. Tears on Earth, Joy in Heaven . . . . . . . . . . 42 Chapter VIII. Madeleine's Happy Death . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Chapter IX. One Abyss Invokes Another . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Chapter X. On the Trail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Chapter XI. The Flight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Chapter XII. Geneva . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Chapter XIII. The Secret Societies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Chapter XIV. The Freemason's Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Chapter XV. Tragedy in the Mountains . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 Chapter XVI. A Funeral in the Snow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 Chapter XVII. An Unwritten Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Chapter XVIII. In Uniform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Chapter XIX. Remorse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Chapter XX. Naples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141