The letters of this man, and of Madame Seraphin, addressed at this
period to me and my brother, are there, in that casket. At the end of a
year they wrote me that the health of my child failed; eight months after,
that she was dead; and they sent me the official notification of her
decease. At this time, Madame Seraphin entered the service of Jacques
Ferrand, after having delivered our child to La Chouette by the hands of a
wretch now in the galleys at Rochefort. I began to write this confession of
La Chouette when she wounded me. This paper is there, with a portrait of
our daughter at the age of four years. Examine all--letters, confessions,
portrait--and you, who have seen her--this unfortunate child--judge."
At these words, which exhausted her strength, Sarah fell back almost
lifeless in her chair. Rudolph was thunderstruck at this revelation. There
are some misfortunes so unlooked for, so horrible, that we are unwilling to
believe them until compelled by overwhelming evidence. Rudolph, persuaded
of the death of Fleur-de-Marie, had but one hope left, which was to
convince himself that she was not his child. With a frightful calmness,
which alarmed Sarah, he approached the table, opened the casket, and fell
to reading the letters one by one, and examining, with scrupulous
attention, the papers which accompanied them. These letters, stamped at the
post-office, written to Sarah and her brother by the notary and by Madame
Seraphin, related to the childhood of Fleur-de-Marie, and to the investment
of the funds destined for her support.
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