"_Mon cher Monsieur_,"--in this way she begins; for her religious severities, if not her years, have curbed any disposition to explosive tenderness,--"I have received the letter of our child, which was addressed to you. I cannot tell you the feelings with which I have read it. I long to clasp her to my heart. And she appeals to you, for me,--the dear child! Yes, you have well done in telling her that I was unworthy (_mechante_). It is true,--unworthy in forgetting duty,--unworthy in loving too well. O Monsieur! if I could live over again that life,--that dear young life among the olive orchards! But the good Christ (thank Him!) leads back the repentant wanderers into the fold of His Church. 'Laus tibi, Christe!' "And the poor child believes that I am in my grave! May be that were better for her and better for me. But no, I shall clasp her to my heart once more,--she, the poor babe! But I forget myself; it is a woman's letter I have been reading. What earnestness! what maturity! what dignity! what tenderness! And will she be as tender to the living as to the erring one whom she believes dead? My heart stops when I ask myself. Yes, I know she will. The Blessed Virgin whispers me that she will, and I fly to greet her! A month, two months, three months, four months?--It is an age. "Monsieur! I cannot wait. I must take ship--sail--wings (if I could find them), and go to meet my child. Until I do there is a tempest in my brain--heart--everywhere. You are surprised, Monsieur, but there is another reason why I should go to this land where Adele has lived. Do you wish to know it? Listen, then, Monsieur! "Do you know who this poor sufferer was whom our child had learned so to love, who died in her arms, who sleeps in the graveyard there, and of whom Adele thinks as of a mother? I have inquired, I have searched high and low, I have fathomed all. Ah, my poor, good sister Marie! Only Marie! You have never known her. In those other days at dear Arles she was too good for you to know her. Yet even then she was a guardian angel,--a guardian too late. _Mea culpa! Mea culpa!_ "I know it can be only Marie; I know it can be only she, who sleeps under the sod in Ash----(_ce nom m'echappe_).