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_4 November, 1895._
My dear Lucie:
The mail coming from Cayenne has arrived, and it has not brought me any
letters. I have now been without tidings of you, of the children, since
the 25th of August, but I will not let the English mail leave without
writing you a few words. I shall not be long, for grief makes my pen
tremble in my fingers.
I think, my dear Lucie, that you are now in possession of my last
letters, and that you yourself are acting with the heroic spirit of a
woman; that you are demanding the truth on every side; that you are
demanding justice for miserable victims; that each day is a day thus
employed until that on which the light breaks, until our honor is
returned to us.
I think, therefore, that I shall soon learn that this appalling agony is
at last at an end. I need not remind you to ask permission to send me a
dispatch when you shall have good news to tell.
The days are long, the hours are heavy, when one has suffered so, and
for so long a time.