yesterday evening?"

"It was well for that gentleman that he went away at midnight, otherwise
I should have killed him this morning."

"My dear sir, allow me to tell you that all that is pure braggadocio.
Yesterday, not to-day, was the time to kill him, or to throw your plate
at his head, at all events. We will now go and see your wife."

I found her in bed, her face to the wall, the coverlet right up to her
chin, and her body convulsed with sobs. I tried to bring her to reason,
but as usual got no reply. Stuard wanted to leave me, but I told him that
if he went out I would go too, as I could do nothing to console her, as
he might know after her refusing the Marquis of Grimaldi's hundred louis
for a smile and her hand to kiss.

"A hundred Louis!" cried the fellow with a sturdy oath; "what folly! We
might have been at home at Liege by now. A princess allows one to kiss
her hand for nothing, and she.... A hundred Louis! Oh, damnable!"

His exclamations, very natural under the circumstances, made me feel
inclined to laugh. The poor devil swore by all his gods, and I was about
to leave the room, when all at once the wretched woman was seized with
true or false convulsions. With one hand she seized a water-bottle and
sent it flying into the middle of the room, and with the other she tore
the clothes away from her breast. Stuard tried to hold her, but her
disorder increased in violence, and the coverlet was disarranged to such
a degree that I could see the most exquisite naked charms imaginable. At
last she grew calm, and her eyes closed as if exhausted; she remained in
the most voluptuous position that desire itself could have invented. I