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To be as brief as possible, we both remained at the young man’s side during the whole of the night. As the concierge had said, he was perishing from inanition, and the physician we called in assured us that only the most constant attention would save his life.

“Monsieur,” Clelie explained to him upon the first occasion upon which he opened his eyes, “you are ill and alone, and we wish to befriend you.” And he was too weak to require from her anything more definite.

Physically he was a person to admire. In health his muscular power must have been immense. He possessed the frame of a young giant, and yet there was in his face a look of innocence and inexperience amazing even when one recollected his youth.

“It is the look,” said Clelie, regarding him attentively,–“the look one sees in the faces of Monsieur and his daughter down-stairs; the look of a person who has lived a simple life, and who knows absolutely nothing of the world.”

It is possible that this may have prepared the reader for the denoument which followed; but singular as it may appear, it did not prepare either Clelie or myself–perhaps because we had seen the world, and having learned to view it in a practical light, were not prepared to encounter suddenly a romance almost unparalleled.

The next morning I was compelled to go out to give my lessons as usual, and left Clelie with our patient. On my return, my wife, hearing my footsteps, came out and met me upon the landing. She was moved by the strongest emotion and much excited; her cheeks were pale and her eyes shone.

“Do not go in yet,” she said, “I have something to tell you. It is almost incredible; but–but it is–the lover!”

For a moment we remained silent–standing looking at each other. To me it seemed incredible indeed.

“He could not give her up,” Clelie went on, “until he was sure she wished to discard him. The mother had employed all her ingenuity to force him to believe that such was the case, but he could not rest until he had seen his betrothed face to face. So he followed her,–poor, inexperienced, and miserable,–and when at last he saw her at a distance, the luxury with which she was surrounded caused his heart to fail him, and he gave way to despair.”

I accompanied her into the room, and heard the rest from his own lips. He gathered together all his small savings, and made his journey in the cheapest possible way,–in the steerage of the vessel, and in third-class carriages,–so that he might have some trifle left to subsist upon.

“I’ve a little farm,” he said, “and there’s a house on it, but I wouldn’t sell that. If she cared to go, it was all I had to take her to, an’ I’d worked hard to buy it. I’d worked hard, early and late, always thinking that some day we’d begin life there together–Esmeraldy and me.”

“Since neither sea, nor land, nor cruelty, could separate them,” said Clelie to me during the day, “it is not I who will help to hold them apart.”

So when Mademoiselle came for her lesson that afternoon, it was Clelie’s task to break the news to her,–to tell her that neither sea nor land lay between herself and her lover, and that he was faithful still.

She received the information as she might have received a blow,–staggering backward, and whitening, and losing her breath; but almost immediately afterward she uttered a sad cry of disbelief and anguish.

“No, no,” she said, “it–it isn’t true! I won’t believe it–I mustn’t. There’s half the world between us. Oh, don’t try to make me believe it,–when it can’t be true!”

“Come with me,” replied Clelie.

Never–never in my life has it been my fate to see, before or since, a sight so touching as the meeting of these two young hearts. When the door of the cold, bare room opened, and Mademoiselle Esmeralda entered, the lover held out his weak arms with a sob,–a sob of rapture, and yet terrible to hear.