"One thought alone troubled this happiness--your ignorance. All unknown to you was this boundless devotion, the trusty arm, the blind slave, the silent tool, the wealth--for henceforth all I possess is mine only as a trust--which lay at your disposal; unknown to you, the heart waiting to receive your confidence, and yearning to replace all that your life (I know it well) has lacked --the liberal ancestress, so ready to meet your needs, a father to whom you could look for protection in every difficulty, a friend, a brother. The secret of your isolation is no secret to me! If I am bold, it is because I long that you should know how much is yours. "Take all, Louise, and is so doing bestow on me the one life possible for me in this world--the life of devotion. In placing the yoke on my neck, you run no risk; I ask nothing but the joy of knowing myself yours. Needless even to say you will never love me; it cannot be otherwise. I must love you from afar, without hope, without reward beyond my own love. "In my anxiety to know whether you will accept me as your servant, I have racked my brain to find some way in which you may communicate with me without any danger of compromising yourself. Injury to your self-respect there can be none in sanctioning a devotion which has been yours for many days without your knowledge. Let this, then, be the token. At the opera this evening, if you carry in your hand a bouquet consisting of one red and one white camellia--emblem of a man's blood at the service of the purity he worships--that will be my answer. I ask no more; thenceforth, at any moment, ten years hence or to-morrow, whatever you demand shall be done, so far as it is possible for man to do it, by your happy servant, "FELIPE HENAREZ." _P. S._--You must admit, dear, that great lords know how to love! See the spring of the African lion! What restrained fire! What loyalty! What sincerity! How high a soul in low estate! I felt quite small and dazed as I said to myself, "What shall I do?" It is the mark of a great man that he puts to flight all ordinary calculations. He is at once sublime and touching, childlike and of the race of giants. In a single letter Henarez has outstripped volumes from Lovelace or Saint-Preux. Here is true love, no beating about the bush. Love may be or it may not, but where it is, it ought to reveal itself in its immensity.