Eight days afterward the carriage entered the porch of the Augustines at Clisson. On its arrival, all the convent pressed round the suffering traveler--poor floweret! broken by the rough winds of the world. "Come, my child; come and live with us again," said the superior. "Not live, my mother," said the young girl, "but die." "Think only of the Lord, my child," said the good abbess. "Yes, my mother! Our Lord, who died for the sins of men." Helene returned to her little cell, from which she had been absent scarcely a month. Everything was still in its place, and exactly as she had left it. She went to the window--the lake was sleeping tranquil and sad, but the ice which had covered it had disappeared beneath the rain, and with it the snow, where, before departing, the young girl had seen the impression of Gaston's footsteps. Spring came, and everything but Helene began to live once more. The trees around the little lake grew green, the large leaves of the water-lilies floated once more upon the surface, the reeds raised up their heads, and all the families of warbling birds came back to people them again. Even the barred gate opened to let the sturdy gardener in. Helene survived the summer, but in September she faded with the waning of the year, and died. The very morning of her death, the superior received a letter from Paris by a courier. She carried it to the dying girl. It contained only these words: "My mother--obtain from your daughter her pardon for the regent." Helene, implored by the superior, grew paler than ever at that name, but she answered: "Yes, my mother, I forgive him. But it is because I go to rejoin him whom he killed." At four o'clock in the afternoon she breathed her last. She asked to be buried at the spot where Gaston used to untie the boat with which he came to visit her; and her last wishes were complied with. And there she sleeps beneath the sod, pure as the flowers that blossom over her grave: and like them, broken by the cruel gusts that sweep the delicate blossoms so mercilessly down, and wither them with a breath. END OF "THE REGENT'S DAUGHTER." [Transcriber's Note: The following typographical errors, present in the original text, have been corrected. On page 439 and page 441, "Tahouet" was changed to "Talhouet". On page 442, an extra quotation mark following "In Heaven's name" was removed. On page 445, "this curiosty displeased him" was changed to "this curiosity displeased him". On page 448, "My child, said he" was changed to "My child, said she". On page 464, a comma following "said the other" was changed to a period. On page 466, "a piece of twelve sons" was changed to "a piece of twelve sous". On page 469, a period following "Talhouet" was changed to a comma. On page 484, a quotation mark preceding "it is the Bastille" was removed. On page 485, "I is the same person" was changed to "It is the same person", and "the pride of am empress" was changed to "the pride of an empress".