"I am glad you told me what the words mean, for I find them beautiful; the music in it would not be the same without the strength and form of the words. So it is, Mademoiselle, with life. Feelings and sentiments, passions and emotions, are like music. They are great and beautiful; they follow us, they are part of us, but they would be nothing--music would be nothing without forms by which we could make it audible--appealing not to our senses alone but to our souls! "And yet I must close my letter sending you only the tune; the words I _can not_ send you, yet believe me, they form part of everything I do or say. "To-morrow, I understand from my men, we shall have some lively work to do. Whatever that work is you will hear of it through the papers. There is a little town near here called Dirbal, inhabited by a poor tribe whose lives have been made miserable by robbers and slave-dealers. It is the business of us watchers of the plains to protect them, and I believe we shall have a lively skirmish with the marauders. There is a congregation of tribes coming down from the north. When I go out with my people to-morrow it may be into danger, for in a wandering life like this, who can tell? I do not mean to be either morbid or sentimental. I only mean to be serious, Mademoiselle, and I find that I am becoming so serious that it will be best to close. "Adieu, Mademoiselle. When you look from your window on the Rhone Valley and see the peaceful fields of Tarascon, when you look on your peaceful gardens, perhaps your mind will travel farther and you will think of Africa. Do so if you can, and perhaps to-night you will say the words only of the song before you go to sleep. "I am, Mademoiselle, "Faithfully yours, "CHARLES DE SABRON." There was only one place for a letter such as that to rest, and it rested on that gentle pillow for many days. It proved a heavy weight against Julia Redmond's heart. She could, indeed, speak the words of the song, and did, and they rose as a nightly prayer for a soldier on the plains; but she could not keep her mind and thoughts at rest. She was troubled and unhappy; she grew pale and thin; she pined more than Pitchouné had pined, and she, alas! could not break her chains and run away. The Duc de Tremont was a constant guest at the house, but he found the American heiress a very capricious and uncertain lady, and Madame d'Esclignac was severe with her niece. "My dear Julia," she said to the beautiful girl, looking at her through her lorgnon; "I don't understand you. Every one of your family has married a title. We have not thought that we could do better with our money than build up fortunes already started; than in preserving noble races and noble names. There has never been a divorce in our family. I am a marquise, your cousin is a countess, your aunt is one of the peeresses of England, and as for you, my dear..."