On the 11th I received your dear, good letters of September, as well as letters from all the family. I need not tell you the intense joy I felt in reading words from you. I thank you for remembering my birthday. I will not speak of it further, for we must not linger over sad memories. What we need now, as you have said so truly, is reality, the truth. After one has suffered in a manner so atrocious and for so long a time, one’s energies, one’s activity, above all, ought to grow in proportion to the sufferings which one endures. Strong in your conscience, it is your right, I will even say it is your duty, to attempt all, to dare all, in order to throw light upon this tragic story, to regain at last our honor, the honor of our children. As I have told you, in this situation, as horrible as it is undeserved, which would soon crush us, there no longer can be any thought of waiting for some happy chance, such as we have already waited for too long. You have now received my letters of October. You ought to act with the force given by my innocence, with the power inspired by the knowledge that you have a noble mission to fulfill. If I have told you to ask to have this matter cleared up by every, if even by heroic means, it is because there are situations which, when they are undeserved, are too much to be endured, which we must put an end to. You know that your soul and mine are but one; they throb together; and what I have told you must certainly have made yours tremble and throb. So I am now waiting for the end of this awful drama, and I count the days. Thanks for the good news that you give me of the children. Kiss them fondly for me until I can embrace them for myself. My tenderest kisses for you. From your devoted ALFRED. Embrace your dear parents, all our family, for me. I do not know by what route you sent the books and the reviews that you spoke of in your letters of the 25th of August, but they certainly have not yet arrived at Guiana. * * * * * _27 December, 1895._ My dear Lucie: I have not yet received your dear letters of October. Neither the French mail of November nor the English mail of December has brought them. What does it mean? What ought I to think of it? In what horrible nightmare have I lived for almost fifteen months? As for suffering, alas! my poor darling, we both know what that is; and besides that, sufferings are of little importance, no matter what they are. What you must have is our honor, the honor of our children. I wrote you a long letter on the 2d of December. To add anything to that letter, or, indeed, to any that preceded it, would be superfluous, would it not? Our thoughts are the same; our hearts have always beaten as one; our souls thrill together to-day, and they cry out for their honor with the burning ardor of honorable hearts struck in all that they hold most precious.