Upon your efforts depends my honor, and that is to say my life--the honor of our poor children, too. You must then attempt everything, try everything, to reach the truth, whether I live or die, for your mission has a higher object than my fate. I embrace you as I love you. ALFRED. * * * * * _20 March, 1895._ My dear Lucie: My letter will be short, for I do not wish to rend your soul; moreover, my sufferings are yours. I cannot do more than repeat what I said in the letter that I wrote to you the 13th of this month. The more you hasten my rehabilitation the more you will abridge my martyrdom. I have done for you more than the deepest love can inspire. I have endured the worst tortures to which a man of spirit can be subjected. Now it is your turn to do the impossible, to restore to me my honor, if you wish me to live. My condition here is not yet definite; I am still in close confinement. I will not speak to you of my material life, that is indifferent to me; physical miseries are nothing, whatever they may be. I wish for but one thing, and of that I dream night and day; with that my brain is always haunted; it is that they shall give me back the honor that never failed me. As yet they have not given me the books that I brought; they are awaiting orders. Always send me the reviews by the first post. Then, my darling, if you want me to live, have my honor given back to me as soon as possible; my martyrdom cannot be borne indefinitely. I think that I ought to tell you the truth rather than to calm you with deceitful illusions. We must look the situation in the face. I have been persuaded to live only because you have inculcated in my mind the conviction that innocence always makes itself known. My innocence must be made manifest not only for my sake, but for the children’s, for you all. Embrace the darlings, embrace every one for me, and a thousand kisses for yourself. ALFRED. As letters will be very long in reaching me, send me a dispatch when you have good news to announce to me. My life hangs upon this expectation. Think of all that I am suffering. * * * * * _28 March, 1895._ I was hoping to receive news of you at about this time; as yet I have heard nothing. I have already written you two letters. I know nothing as yet beyond the four walls of my chamber. As for my health, it could not be very brilliant. Aside from my physical miseries, of which I speak only to cite them, the cause of this condition of my health lies chiefly in the disorder of my nervous system, produced by an uninterrupted succession of moral shocks. You know that no matter how severe they might be at times, physical sufferings never wrung a groan from me, and that I could look death coolly in the face if only my mental sufferings did not darken my thoughts.