beside your love for me--a love that you looked upon as a dream. But, at least, the remembrance of your love will remain sweet and dear to you, because it will have been noble and pure. On my part, Nominoë, the remembrance of you will also remain ever dear to me, because it was you who inspired me with a generous thought, a thought of justice and reparation. Yes, when, according to our common belief, we shall meet again in yonder other worlds, we shall meet with countenances radiant with celestial bliss. I said to you, my friend, our joys are not to be of this world." Nominoë raised his face bathed in tears, and, making an effort to steady his voice: "Listen to me, in turn--above all, mademoiselle, I implore you--believe in my sincerity--" "Nominoë, call me Bertha. The fraternal familiarity will be in the nature of a consolation to me." "Oh, God! Is it your purpose to render my despair still more distressful by reminding me, with such a token of familiarity, of the happiness that I have forfeited!" exclaimed Nominoë amid heartrending sobs. "Pardon, Bertha, pardon me such an answer to the touching proof of your affection; but if you only knew, alas! how much I suffer! Since that journey to The Hague I have loved you, loved you passionately! Do you know, Bertha, what it was that rendered that love irresistible? It was an attraction exactly the counterpart of that which drew you to me. Yes, however singular, however unexplainable it may seem, I loved in you, above all, the daughter of the Nerowegs! Yes, that hopeless love, that insane love, promised only disappointment, grief, suffering, and annihilation to me! And yet it had for me the fatal charm of the void, that drags us to an abyss! I felt at once I know not what sad and tender sentiment by loving in you the descendant of the race that, since earliest childhood, I had learned to curse! You were in my eyes an angel of pardon and of concord! Oh, Bertha! However legitimate hatred may be, it is so bitter, and pardon so sweet! In you I spoke your ancestors free from guilt! So far from considering you one with their iniquities, I considered them one with your virtues! Yes, you redeemed the wicked of your race, as Christ redeemed the world by his virtues, his kindness, his evangelical grace!" "Nominoë! How proud I am of my love for you!" cried Mademoiselle Plouernel with indescribable ecstasy, and moved to the profoundest depths of her soul by Nominoë's words and the accent in which they were uttered. "Oh! I was not mistaken when I said to you, our love draws its inspiration from sentiments too celestial, ever to be of this world."