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Rh "I am too wretched to wish you well. I feel as if some cruel fatality were on all I love. I must, however, say, it would give even me pleasure to serve you; but this, I trust, need scarcely be said."

"Indeed not," replied Francesca; "and most cherished will be the remembrances I shall take with me from France."

Again the conversation sunk into silence, and the Duc de Mercœur seemed to have forgotten the presence of his companion. His loss was too recent to find comfort in those tender and sacred recollections with which time invests the dead. At last, rising abruptly from his seat, he turned to bid Francesca farewell; a few sad but kind words, and his step was on the threshold, when he drew forth a small packet, which he placed in her hand: "You will value this—keep it for her sake."

The heavy portals closed after him, and Francesca, hurrying to her cell, could not refrain from tears. "A little while," thought she, "And I shall have left Paris for ever! It is but a few months since we arrived here, full of eagerness and hope, expecting—we should have been puzzled to say what, but some thing of greater felicity than we had ever known. How little of time—