most mortifying suppositions, the most cruel doubts. At length the
chevalier had grown bolder, and had declared his passion for her;
whereupon she had risen and ordered him to leave her. Just at that
moment the duke had entered, and had taken the natural agitation and
confusion of the chevalier as signs of her guilt. Some explanation was
also necessary to account for the presence of the two other visitors of
whom he had been told below stairs. As he knew nothing at all about
them, the servant who admitted them never having seen either of them
before, she acknowledged that two gentlemen had called earlier in the
evening; that they had refused to send in their names, but as they had
said they had come to inquire about the duke, she suspected them of
having been in league with the chevalier in the attempt to ruin her
reputation, perhaps they had even promised to help him to carry her off,
but she knew nothing positive about them or their plans. The duke,
contrary to his wont, did not allow himself to be easily convinced by
these lame explanations, but unfortunately for him the lady knew how to
assume an attitude favourable to her purpose. She had been induced, she
said, with the simple confidence born of love, to listen to people who
had led her to suppose they could give her news of one so dear to her as
the duke. From this falsehood she proceeded to bitter reproaches:
instead of defending herself, she accused him of having left her a prey
to anxiety; she went so far as to imply that there must be some
foundation for the hints of the chevalier, until at last the duke,
although he was not guilty of the slightest infidelity, and had excellent
reasons to give in justification of his silence, was soon reduced to a
penitent mood, and changed his threats into entreaties for forgiveness.
As to the shriek he had heard, and which he was sure had been uttered by
the stranger who had forced his way into her room after the departure of
the others, she asserted that his ears must have deceived him. Feeling
that therein lay her best chance of making things smooth, she exerted