Just as she spoke the footman brought in a letter for the Marquise.

"Ah!" she cried, and her face grew white.

"I need not ask from whom it comes," said Mme. de Wimphen, but the
Marquise was reading the letter, and heeded nothing else.

Mme. de Wimphen, watching her friend, saw strong feeling wrought to
the highest pitch, ecstasy of the most dangerous kind painted on
Julie's face in swift changing white and red. At length Julie flung
the sheet into the fire.

"It burns like fire," she said. "Oh! my heart beats till I cannot
breathe."

She rose to her feet and walked up and down. Her eyes were blazing.

"He did not leave Paris!" she cried.

Mme. de Wimphen did not dare to interrupt the words that followed,
jerked-out sentences, measured by dreadful pauses in between. After
every break the deep notes of her voice sank lower and lower. There
was something awful about the last words.

"He has seen me, constantly, and I have not known it.--A look, taken
by stealth, every day, helps him to live.--Louisa, you do not know!
--He is dying.--He wants to say good-bye to me. He knows that my
husband has gone away for several days. He will be here in a moment.
Oh! I shall die: I am lost.--Listen, Louisa, stay with me!--_I am
afraid!_"