as to my state of mind, alarmed this poor woman, who had deigned to take
in me an interest so little deserved. Her reply, very agitated and
incoherent, was brought to me by her maid, who had taken my letter, and
by whom, as I before said, our correspondence had been of late carried
on. In her reply she implored me to decide, to reflect on nothing till I
had seen her; stated how the rest of her day was pre-engaged; and since
to visit her openly had been made impossible by the Due's interdict,
enclosed the key to the private entrance to her rooms, by which I could
gain an interview with her at ten o'clock that night, an hour at which
the Duc had informed her he should be out till late at his club. Now,
however great the indiscretion which the Duchesse here committed, it is
due to her memory to say that I am convinced that her dominant idea was
that I meditated self-destruction; that no time was to be lost to save me
from it; and for the rest she trusted to the influence which a woman's
tears and adjurations and reasonings have over even the strongest and
hardest men. It is only one of those coxcombs in whom the world of
fashion abounds who could have admitted a thought that would have done
wrong to the impulsive, generous, imprudent eagerness of a woman to be in
time to save from death by his own hand a fellow-being for whom she had
conceived an interest. I so construed her note. At the hour she named I
admitted myself into the rooms by the key she sent. You know the rest: I
was discovered by the Duc and by the agents of police in the cabinet in
which the Duchesse's jewels were kept. The key that admitted me into the
cabinet was found in my possession."

De Mauleon's voice here faltered, and he covered his face with a
convulsive hand. Almost in the same breath he recovered from visible
sign of emotion, and went on with a half laugh.

"Ah! you envied me, did you, for being spoiled by the women? Enviable