is this?' he cried angrily; 'your witch-working again! But
if it calms you to play like this, I am ready to humour so ridiculous a
whimsey.'

Half-laughing, half-annoyed, he took the letter from his pocket.
Wilhelmine laid her two hands in one of his and gazed into his eyes.

For a moment she stood as though hesitating, and the Duke felt her hands
flutter like caught birds. Her eyes seemed to look into some far
distance. Slowly she began in a low voice:

'Monseigneur, my Prince, and once my friend, you are being grossly
abused, your noble trust and love is made mock of by a creature too vile
for human words. A woman, who to her other lovers holds you up to scorn
and ridicule--yes, ridicule of your passion.' Her voice grew faint and
faded into a whisper, and the hands which the Duke held trembled and
twitched violently. Slowly, falteringly, she went on, sometimes reciting
a whole sentence in the very words of the letter, sometimes only giving
the gist; but always in the same low, monotonous voice, like the
utterance of one who speaks in sleep.

The Duke stood rigid, fear and amazement written on his face. Once his
hand, which held the letter to her brow, dropped to his side. Immediately
the subtle comedian paused, moaning as though in physical pain. It was a
magnificent bit of trickery; small marvel that his Highness was deceived.

When she had told him all the paper contained, she covered her face with
her hands and fell to trembling as in an ague, moaning and sighing
incessantly. In truth, she had worked herself into a fit of frantic
emotion, and had her will been less strong, she must indeed have raved
off into hysterics.

Now consider this thing. Here is a man who had lost a letter; who sought
it; at length finding it safe in a locked bureau. The search takes place
in the very presence of a being he had half accused of purloining the
missing letter. This person, he is assured by a prince of the highest
honour, has never left a crowded ballroom during the only hours when it
would have been possible for her to have stolen the paper. Then he
himself proposes, in jest, that she should guess the contents of a
document, which he feels certain has been read by himself alone, and has
merely been mislaid in a carefully locked bureau. This extraordinary feat
she accomplishes in a seeming trance. Add to all this, that the woman is
his beloved mistress, whom he ardently wishes to trust, and that often
before she had told h