visible in the interstices. They were as follows:--

"Don't be uneasy, my dear Clemence; our happiness cannot again be
troubled; and your husband will soon lay aside his suspicions.
However ill you may be, you must have the courage to come here
to-morrow; find strength in your love for me. Mine for you has
induced me to submit to a cruel operation, and I cannot leave my
bed. I have had the actual cautery applied to my back, and it was
necessary to burn it in a long time; you understand me? But I
thought of you, and I did not suffer.

"To baffle Maulincour (who will not persecute us much longer), I
have left the protecting roof of the embassy, and am now safe from
all inquiry in the rue des Enfants-Rouges, number 12, with an old
woman, Madame Etienne Gruget, mother of that Ida, who shall pay
dear for her folly. Come to-morrow, at nine in the morning. I am
in a room which is reached only by an interior staircase. Ask for
Monsieur Camuset. Adieu; I kiss your forehead, my darling."

Jacquet looked at Jules with a sort of honest terror, the sign of a
true compassion, as he made his favorite exclamation in two separate
and distinct tones,--

"The deuce! the deuce!"

"That seems clear to you, doesn't it?" said Jules. "Well, in the
depths of my heart there is a voice that pleads for my wife, and makes
itself heard above the pangs of jealousy. I must endure the worst of
all agony until to-morrow; but to-morrow, between nine and ten I shall
know all; I shall be happy or wretched for all my life. Think of me