About the same time, Carlotta, who had a small house of her own in the
Rue du Faubourg St. Honore, rang for her maid, who brought her letters
to her bed. Among them was an anonymous missive, written in red ink,
in a hesitating, clumsy hand, which ran:

If you appear to-night, you must be prepared for a great misfortune at
the moment when you open your mouth to sing ... a misfortune worse than
death.

The letter took away Carlotta's appetite for breakfast. She pushed
back her chocolate, sat up in bed and thought hard. It was not the
first letter of the kind which she had received, but she never had one
couched in such threatening terms.

She thought herself, at that time, the victim of a thousand jealous
attempts and went about saying that she had a secret enemy who had
sworn to ruin her. She pretended that a wicked plot was being hatched
against her, a cabal which would come to a head one of those days; but
she added that she was not the woman to be intimidated.

The truth is that, if there was a cabal, it was led by Carlotta herself
against poor Christine, who had no suspicion of it. Carlotta had never
forgiven Christine for the triumph which she had achieved when taking
her place at a moment's notice. When Carlotta heard of the astounding
reception bestowed upon her understudy, she was at once cured of an
incipient attack of bronchitis and a bad fit of sulking against the
management and lost the slightest inclination to shirk her duties.
From that time, she worked with all her might to "smother" her rival,
enlisting the services of influential friends to persuade the managers
not to give Christine an opportunity for a fresh triumph. Certain
newspapers which had begun to extol the talent of Christine now
interested themselves only in the fame of Carlotta. Lastly, in the
theater itself, the celebrated, but heartless and soulless diva made
the most scandalous remarks about Christine and tried to cause her
endless minor unpleasantnesses.

When Carlotta had finished thinking over the threat contained in the
strange letter, she got up.

"We shall see," she said, adding a few oaths in her native Spanish with
a very determined air.

The first thing she saw, when looking out of her window, was a hearse.
She was very superstitious; and the hearse and the letter convinced her
that she was running the most serious dangers that evening. She
collected all her supporters, told them that she was threatened at that