The platonic love of Angelique de Guerchi for the handsome Chevalier de
Moranges had resulted, as we have seen, in no practical wrong to the Duc
de Vitry. After her reconciliation with her lover, brought about by the
eminently satisfactory explanations she was able to give of her conduct,
which we have already laid before our readers, she did not consider it
advisable to shut her heart to his pleadings much longer, and the
consequence was that at the end of a year she found herself in a
condition which it was necessary to conceal from everyone. To Angelique
herself, it is true, the position was not new, and she felt neither grief
nor shame, regarding the coming event as a means of making her future
more secure by forging a new link in the chain which bound the duke to
her. But he, sure that but for himself Angelique would never have
strayed from virtue's path, could not endure the thought of her losing
her reputation and becoming an object for scandal to point her finger at;
so that Angelique, who could not well seem less careful of her good name
than he, was obliged to turn his song of woe into a duet, and consent to
certain measures being taken.

One evening, therefore, shortly before Maitre Quennebert's marriage, the
fair lady set out, ostensibly on a journey which was to last a fortnight
or three weeks. In reality she only made a circle in a post-chaise round
Paris, which she re-entered at one of the barriers, where the duke
awaited her with a sedan-chair. In this she was carried to the very
house to which de Jars had brought his pretended nephew after the duel.
Angelique, who had to pay dearly for her errors, remained there only
twenty-four hours, and then left in her coffin, which was hidden in a
cellar under the palace of the Prince de Conde, the body being covered
with quicklime. Two days after this dreadful death, Commander de Jars
presented himself at the fatal house, and engaged a room in which he