But he had already left it, never to return; and the superior had sworn to conceal his new abode from every human being.

Before leaving the convent, on the night of your mother's death, he confirmed her bequest, which had already given you to my eldest sister, then a rigid Catholic.

But my father soon after became a convert to the opinions of the Hugonots, to which we also inclined; and my sister's marriage with M.Rossville confirmed her in those sentiments.

She thought proper to educate you in a faith which she had adopted from deliberate conviction; and, as your father had renounced his claims, she of course felt responsible only to her own conscience.

Every effort to find him, indeed, continued unavailing; years passed away, and by all who had known him he was numbered as with the dead.
"But your father still lived, Lucie, and the recollection of his injured wife forever haunted him; her misery, her untimely death, all weighed heavily on his conscience, and he sought to expiate his crime by a life of austerity, and the most constant and painful acts of self-denial and devotion.