your heart as it is in mine, is that I shall soon be told that our honor is given back to us and with it our former happiness.
My conscience and my reason give me faith; the supernatural is not of this world. In the end everything is made clear. But the hours of waiting are long and cruel when the situation is so appalling as well for us as for our families.
Your dear letters of the beginning of March—you see how they are delayed—are my daily reading. I succeed thus, though far from you, in talking with you. My thoughts, indeed, never leave you, nor our dear children.
I await tidings of your health and that of our children with impatience. I am also anxious to know what date your letters will bear. My health is good. My heart beats with your own, and envelops you with all its tenderness. I have written you two long letters during the last half of June; I could only keep on repeating myself. Let me end this letter by embracing you with all the strength of our souls, and our dear children also.
Your devoted
Alfred.
Kisses to all our family.
2 July, 11 o'clock in the evening.
My dear Lucie:
I had been without news of you since the seventh of March. This evening I received your letters of March and of the beginning of April; they, probably, had re-
