enemy's son, was to take her to the ball at the
Opera on the night of January 13. Gaudry was to wait in her apartment
until their return. When he heard the bell ring, which communicated with
the outer gate, he was to come down, take his place in the shadow of one
of the pavilions on either side of the drive, and from the cover of this
position fling in the face of the young man the vitriol which she had
given him. The widow herself, under the pretence of closing the smaller
gate, would be well behind the victim, and take care to leave the gate
open so that Gaudry could make his escape.

In spite of his reluctance, his sense of foreboding, Georges de Saint
Pierre came to Paris on the night of the 12th, which he spent at the
widow's apartment. He went to his own rooms on the morning of the 13th.

This eventful day, which, to quote Iago, was either to "make or
fordo quite" the widow, found her as calm, cool and deliberate in the
execution of her purpose as the Ancient himself. Gaudry came to her
apartment about five o'clock in the afternoon. The widow showed him the
vitriol and gave him final directions. She would, she said, return from
the ball about three o'clock in the morning. Gaudry was then sent
away till ten o'clock, as Georges was dining with her. He returned at
half-past ten and found the widow dressing, arraying herself in a pink
domino and a blonde wig. She was in excellent spirits. When Georges came
to fetch her, she put Gaudry into an alcove in the drawing-room which
was curtained off from the rest of the room. Always thoughtful, she had
placed a stool there that he might rest himself. Gaudry could hear her
laughing and joking with her lover. She reproached him playfully with
hindering her in her dressing. To keep him quiet, she gave him a book to
read, Montaigne's "Essays." Georges opened it and read the thirty-fifth
chapter of the second book, the essay on "Three Good Women," which tells
how three brave women of antiquity endured death or suffering in order
to share their husbands' fate. Curiously enough, the essay concludes
with these words, almost prophetic for the unhappy reader: "I am
enforced to live, and sometimes to live is magnanimity." Whilst Georges
went to fetch a cab, the widow released Gaudry from his place of
concealment, exhorted him to have courage, and promised him, if he
succeeded, the accomplishment of his desire. And so the gay couple
departed for the ball. There the widow's high spirits