Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 3).djvu/212

 "He left me the most blessed of men. Oh! days of delight, rapid in your course, and succeeded by years of misery and horror!

"I had been married about three months when I received a letter from my brother, informing me that he was ill, and anxiously desirous of seeing me. I sighed at the idea of even a transient separation from my love, but I could not resist the call of friendship, and accordingly set out for a cottage near the castle of Montmorenci, where St. Julian had once before lodged, and now appointed to see me.

"The heaviness of heart with which I commenced my journey was surely a presentiment of the ills that were approaching. Oh! venerable Dunlere, thy happiness and mine was then about setting!

"The chateau de Valdore lay in my way to the castle of Montmorenci; I could not think of passing it without inquiring after the friend of my youth, from whom I had heard but once since my departure from her house; our correspondence, as she then informed