I will confide one thing to you, however--in the moments of my deepest sadness, in my moments of violent crisis, a star shines all at once, lighting up my brain and beaming upon me. It is your image, my darling, it is your adored image that I hope soon to behold face to face. And with that before me I can wait patiently until they give me back that which I hold dearest in this world--my honor, my honor that has never failed me. Embrace them all for me. Kisses to the darlings. I embrace you a thousand times. ALFRED. How impatiently I wait for Friday! What a pity that you came to-day at the hour of the director’s luncheon; had you come at some other time perhaps they might have permitted you to embrace me. _Tuesday, 7 o’clock in the evening._ They have just given me a whole package of letters--from Jeanmaire, from your father, from Louise, and from you. Thank them all for writing to me. The letters have made me weep, but they have eased my wounded soul. Answer every one for me. * * * * * _9 January, 1895, Wednesday, 5 o’clock._ My good Darling: I, also, receive my letters only after a long delay. They have only now given me your letter of Tuesday morning. With it were numerous letters from all the family. What can we do, my darling? We must bow our heads, we must suffer without complaining. Truly, even now, when I think it over, I wonder how I could have had the courage to promise you to live on after my condemnation. That day, that Saturday, is burned into my mind in letters of fire. I have the courage of the soldier who goes forward gladly to meet death face to face: but alas! shall I have the soul of the martyr? But be tranquil, my darling. I shall force myself to live and to resist until the day of my vindication. I have borne without flinching the anguish of the most wounding affront that can be imposed upon a man of heart who is innocent, whose conscience is pure. My heart has bled; it bleeds still. I live only by the hope that they will give me back my place in the army, the place I won by gallant and meritorious conduct--the _galons_ that no act of mine had ever sullied! And moreover, whatever sufferings may still await me, my heart commands me to live. I must resist; I must resist for the name that is borne by my dear children, for the name of all the family. But duty is sometimes hard to follow. You speak of my life in this prison--what good can it do to increase your sadness, my darling? Your grief is great enough without my augmenting it by my complaining. I live by hope, my good darling. I live, because I believe that it is impossible that the truth shall not some day be made clear, because it cannot be that my innocence shall not be some day recognised and proclaimed by this dear France--my country, to whom I have always brought my intelligence and my strength--to whom I would have consecrated all the blood that is in my veins.