I cannot believe in anything but your love and the affection of all of ours. We must continually search for the guilty one. All means are good. Chance alone will not suffice. Perhaps I shall succeed in surmounting the horrible terror with which the infamous sentence I am going to bear inspires me. To be an honorable man, to be innocent, and to see my honor torn from me and trampled under foot--oh, it is fearful! it is the worst of sufferings! worse than death! Oh, if I go to the end it will be for your sake, my dear, adored one, for you are the only thread that binds me to life! How we loved each other! To-day more than ever before I know what place you hold in my heart. But, above all, be careful of your own self; think of your health. _You must, at all costs_, for the sake of my children, who have need of you. Then search in Paris as you did down there for the guilty one. We must try everything; we must leave nothing undone. There are people surely, there must be people, who know the name of the guilty man. I embrace you. ALFRED. * * * * * _Wednesday, 2 P. M., 26 December, 1894._ My Darling: I have just received your two letters and Marie’s. You are sublime, my adored one, and I am amazed at your courage and your heroism. I loved you before. To-day I kneel before you, for you are a sublime woman. But do not allow yourself to be beaten down, I supplicate you. Think of our children, who have need of you. It may be that in my desire to be worthy of you, to reach the heights on which you stand, I shall be able to hold out to the end. It is not physical suffering that I fear--that has never been strong enough to break me down; its blows glance off--but the torture of soul, the knowledge that my name is dragged in the mire, the name of a man who is innocent, the name of a man of honor. Cry it aloud, my darling; cry to every one that I am innocent--the victim of terrible fatality. Shall we ever succeed in discovering the real guilty one? Let us hope it; to lose that hope would be to despair of everything. I hope to see you soon, and that is my consolation. All the day, all the night, my thoughts fly to you--to you all. I think of the happiness we enjoyed, and I ask myself, even now, by what inexplicable fatality that happiness was broken. It is the most awful tragedy that it has ever been given me to read, and instead of reading it, I must live it out, alas! Finally, be careful of your own self, my darling. You need all your health, all your physical vigor, if you are to bring to a successful end the task you have so nobly undertaken. I embrace you and our poor darlings, of whom I dare not think. A thousand kisses. ALFRED. * * * * * _Wednesday, 4 o’clock, 26 December, 1894._ My Darling: You ask me what I do all day long.