“Ah, well!” continued Anthony, “I received that letter yesterday, and I went there this morning. The concierge conducted me to the grave, and I remained two hours on my knees there, praying and weeping. Do you understand? She was there, that woman. Her flaming spirit had stolen away; the body consumed by it had bowed, even to breaking, beneath the burden of jealousy and of remorse; she was there, under my feet, and she had lived, and she had died, for me unknown; unknown!--and taking a place in my life as she had taken one in the grave; unknown!--and burying in my heart a corpse, cold and lifeless, as she had buried one in the sepulchre--Oh! Do you know anything to equal it? Do you know any event so appalling? Therefore, now, no more hope. I will see her again never. I would dig up her grave that I might recover, perhaps, some traces wherewithal to reconstruct her face; and I love her always! Do you understand, Alexandre? I love her like a madman; and I would kill myself this instant in order to rejoin her, if she were not to remain unknown to me for eternity, as she was unknown to me in this world.” With these words he snatched the letter from my hands, kissed it over and over again, and began to weep like a little child. I took him in my arms, and not knowing what to say to him, I wept with him. FOOTNOTES: [1] Redingote is a French corruption of the English word “riding coat” and means generally a long, plain double-breasted street coat. [2] Charenton Saint Maurice, the lunatic asylum near Paris, commonly designated as Charenton. [3] The name of a public square in Paris where executions formerly took place. HOW THE REDOUBT WAS TAKEN BY PROSPER MÉRIMÉE [Illustration] _Prosper Mérimée, novelist, historian, dramatist, and critic, was born in Paris in 1803. Rarely gifted and highly educated, he held various offices in the civil service, was an Academician, and in 1853 a Senator of the Empire. He was a great traveler, and through his tact and engaging personality was welcomed among all classes, observing wherever he went, and gathering material for his stories, in which a great variety of types are noticeable. His literary style--clear, simple, artistic--is considered a model of restraint and conciseness. “Carmen,” on which Bizet’s opera is founded, and the novel, “Columba,” are probably the best known of his works. The latter part of his life he devoted to introducing through his own translation the great Russian authors, Poushkin, Gogol, and Turgenev. The famous “Lettres à une Inconnue” were published after his death at Cannes, in 1870, where they have lately erected a monument to him._ [Illustration] HOW THE REDOUBT WAS TAKEN BY PROSPER MÉRIMÉE