"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 that by showing a bold front to our destiny we should subdue it to our will. The commencement was sinful, it has met with a dire retribution. Jules's letters announced his speedy return. He had sold every thing in his own country, had given up all his mercantile affairs, through which he had greatly increased an already considerable fortune, and now he was about to join us, or rather me, without whom he could not live. This appeared to me like the demand for payment of a heavy debt. This debt I owed to Jules, who loved me with all his heart, who was in possession of my father's promised word and mine also. Yet I could not give up your friend. In a state of distraction I told him all; we meditated flight. Yes, I was so far guilty, and I make the confession in hopes that some portion of my errors may be expiated by repentance. My father, who had long been in a declining state, suddenly grew worse, and this delayed and hindered the fulfillment of our designs. Jules arrived.