"Flaminia, crushed by the grief of a separation that snatched away from her for ever the half of her soul, had, until these last words of her father, remained silent; but then, lifting her head and leaning slightly toward Albert, said to him in a tone that was audible only to him, 'Yes, happily, one dies at every age.'
"'Do you not, then, think on the grief of those who are left?' answered he, in a voice of low reproach.
"'Oh!' replied she quickly, 'if I die first, I will come to seek you.'
"Before that cry, uttered from the heart, before that affection that felt itself sufficiently strong to vanquish the laws of death, sufficiently holy that God should grant it a miracle, silence could be the only answer; but a glance of Albert replaced with all the eloquence of the heart the powerless word. On the morrow of that evening, Albert left Flaminia. I will not paint to you their affliction. It was immense. But a hope that is too ill known in this, our century, sustained their courage and energy. { 80} At the moment of an adieu so cruel to both, not a tear fell from their eyes. That they did flow, and most abundantly and bitterly, there is no doubt, since grief never loses its rights, and human force, even the best sustained, has its bounds; but they flowed in silence and in secret, and he who was their only witness treasured them up. The days, the months, the seasons passed on; three times the trees had lost their foliage and renewed their leaves; three times had the alley of vines seen the winter's sun pass unobstructed through their naked branches. All had changed around them; their hearts alone changed not. The renown of Albert grew each day, with his valor, more brilliant; but it was no longer renown that he sought, it was a death that would have opened before him that wide field where impatience dies away before the eternity that then commences; death that he desired because it would have brought him near to Flaminia; and death would not listen to him. In vain did he fling himself into the thickest of the danger; in vain did he accomplish prodigies that had caused the bravest to turn pale; he passed through all these without even a wound. Although he had but very rare occasion of knowing what passed in that cherished spot where ever rested his heart and thoughts, still he doubted not but that the tenderness of Flaminia was as lively and as deep as his own; nor did he deceive himself. Flaminia had refused under different pretexts the offers that had been made to her; and notwithstanding all the desire they felt to establish their daughter, I would dare to affirm that it was not without a certain secret joy that the Prince and Princess Balbo looked upon the prospect before them, the hope of keeping her always by their side. Do not blame them too quickly, my friend; for it is a painful thought that during twenty years a child should have been the object of your affection and of your solicitude; that she should have taken the best and largest portion of your life and heart, in order that, one day, a stranger, under the title of a new-born love, should carry away from you all your joy; leaving you to see your much-loved child place herself under another protection than thine, and quit without regret the house where she leaves a blank that nothing else can fill.