, wished that in the mean time he
might die.
    No living being ever humbly laid his advantage at M. Emanuel's feet, or
confidingly put it into his hands, that he spurned the trust, or repulsed the
repository. What might be his private pain or inward reluctance to leave Europe
- what his calculations for his own future - none asked, or knew, or reported.
All this was a blank to me. His conferences with his confessor I might guess;
the part duty and religion were made to play in the persuasions used, I might
conjecture. He was gone, and had made no sign. There my knowledge closed.
 
With my head bent, and my forehead resting on my hands, I sat amidst grouped
tree-stems and branching brushwood. Whatever talk passed amongst my neighbours,
I might hear, if I would; I was near enough; but, for some time, there was
scarce motive to attend. They gossiped about the dresses, the music, the
illuminations, the fine night. I listened to hear them say, »It is calm weather
for his voyage; the Antigua« (his ship) »will sail prosperously.« No such remark
fell: neither the Antigua, nor her course, nor her passenger, were named.
    Perhaps the light chat scarcely interested old Madame Walravens more than it
did me; she appeared restless, turning her head now to this side, now that,
looking through the trees, and among the crowd, as if expectant of an arrival
and impatient of a delay. »Où sont-ils? Pourquoi ne viennent-ils?« I heard her
mutter more than once; and at last, as if determined to have an answer to her
question - which hitherto none seemed to mind, she spoke aloud this phrase - a
phrase brief enough, simple enough, but it sent a shock through me -
    »Messieurs et mesdames,« said she, »où donc est Justine Marie?«
    »Justine Marie!« What name was this? Justine Marie - the dead nun - where
was she? Why in her grave, Madame Walravens - what can you want with her? You
shall go to her, but she shall not come to you.
    Thus I should have answered, had the response lain with me, but nobody
seemed to be of my mind; nobody seemed surprised, startled, or at a loss. The
quietest common-place answer met the strange, the dead-disturbing, the
Witch-of-Endor query of the hunchback.
    »Justine Marie,« said one, »
