English of them was as follows:--

"My wife has tried to kill me, and she has done it; I am dying, dying
horribly. It is to marry my dear daughter to M. de Cintre. With all my
soul I protest,--I forbid it. I am not insane,--ask the doctors, ask
Mrs. B----. It was alone with me here, to-night; she attacked me and put
me to death. It is murder, if murder ever was. Ask the doctors.

"HENRI-URBAIN DE BELLEGARDE"

CHAPTER XXIII

Newman returned to Paris the second day after his interview with Mrs.
Bread. The morrow he had spent at Poitiers, reading over and over again
the little document which he had lodged in his pocket-book, and thinking
what he would do in the circumstances and how he would do it. He would
not have said that Poitiers was an amusing place; yet the day seemed
very short. Domiciled once more in the Boulevard Haussmann, he walked
over to the Rue de l'Universite and inquired of Madame de Bellegarde's
portress whether the marquise had come back. The portress told him that
she had arrived, with M. le Marquis, on the preceding day, and further
informed him that if he desired to enter, Madame de Bellegarde and her
son were both at home. As she said these words the little white-faced
old woman who peered out of the dusky gate-house of the Hotel de
Bellegarde gave a small wicked smile--a smile which seemed to Newman
to mean, "Go in if you dare!" She was evidently versed in the current
domestic history; she was placed where she could feel the pulse of the
house. Newman stood a moment, twisting his mustache and looking at her;
then he abruptly turned away. But this was not because he was afraid
to go in--though he doubted whether, if he did so, he should be able
to make his way, unchallenged, into the presence of Madame de Cintre's
relatives. Confidence--excessive confidence, perhaps--quite as much as
timidity prompted his retreat. He was nursing his thunder-bolt; he loved
it; he was unwilling to part with it. He seemed to be holding it aloft
in the rumbling, vaguely-flashing air, directly over the heads of his
victims, and he fancied he could see their pale, upturned faces. Few
specimens of the human countenance had ever given him such pleasure
as these, lighted in the lurid fashion I have hinted at, and he was
disposed to sip the cup of contemplative revenge in a leisurely fashion.
It must be added, too, that he was at a loss to see exactly how he could
arrange to witness the operation of his thunder. To