"Poor coward," he said, "let me not be unkind.

See, I burn your letter, lest it should be found, and disturb the peace you prize so highly.

I, too, shall soon be at peace." He lighted the letter, and dropped it on the ground: it burned slowly away.
He eyed it, despairingly.

"Ay," said he, "you perish, last record of an unhappy love: and even so pass away my life; my hopes of glory, and my dreams of love; it all ends to-day: at nine and twenty." He put his white handkerchief to his eyes.

Josephine had given it him.
He cried a little.
When he had done crying, he put his white handkerchief in his bosom, and the whole man was transformed beyond language to express.