I, my dear one, am about to tell everything to
my mother. Her heart will justify my conduct; she will rejoice in
our secret poem, so romantic, human and divine in one.
You have the confession of the daughter; you must now obtain the
consent of the Comte de La Bastie, father of your
Modeste.
P.S.--Above all, do not come to Havre without having first
obtained my father's consent. If you love me you will not fail to
find him on his way through Paris.
"What are you doing, up at this hour, Mademoiselle Modeste?" said the
voice of Dumay at her door.
"Writing to my father," she answered; "did you not tell me you should
start in the morning?"
Dumay had nothing to say to that, and he went to bed, while Modeste
wrote another long letter, this time to her father.
On the morrow, Francois Cochet, terrified at seeing the Havre postmark
on the envelope which Ernest had mailed the night before, brought her
young mistress the following letter and took away the one which
Modeste had written:--
To Mademoiselle O. d'Este M.,--My heart tells me that you were the
woman so carefully veiled and disguised, and seated between
Monsieur and Madame Latournelle, who have but one child, a son.
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