arted. I pushed back the shutter,
and, seeing that my tutor was about to re-enter, I threw myself on my
couch, in a confusion of brain caused by all I had just heard. My
governor opened the door a few moments after, and thinking I was asleep,
gently closed it again. As soon as ever it was shut, I rose, and,
listening, heard the sound of retiring footsteps. Then I returned to the
shutter, and saw my tutor and Dame Perronnette go out together. I was
alone in the house. They had hardly closed the gate before I sprang from
the window and ran to the well. Then, just as my governor had leaned
over, so leaned I. Something white and luminous glistened in the green
and quivering ripples of the water. The brilliant disk fascinated and
allured me; my eyes became fixed, and I could hardly breathe. The well
seemed to draw me in with its large mouth and icy breath; and I thought
I read, at the bottom of the water, characters of fire traced upon the
letter the queen had touched. Then, scarcely knowing what I was about,
and urged on by one of those instinctive impulses which drive men upon
their destruction, I lowered the cord from the windlass of the well to
within about three feet of the water, leaving the bucket dangling, and
at the same time taking infinite pains not to disturb that coveted
letter, which was beginning to change its white tint for a greenish
hue--proof enough that it was sinking--and then, with the rope weltering
in my hands, slid down into the abyss.

"When I saw myself hanging over the dark pool, when I saw the sky
lessening above my head, a cold shudder came over me, a chill fear got
the better of me, I was seized with giddiness, and the hair rose on my
head; but my strong will still reigned supreme over all the terror and
disquietude. I gained the water, and at once plunged into it, holding on
by one hand, while I immersed the other and seized the dear letter,
which, alas! came in two in my grasp. I concealed the two fragments in
my body-coat, and helping myself with my feet against the side of the
pit, and clinging on with my hands, agile and vigorous as I was, and,
above all, pressed for time, I regained the brink, drenching it as I
touched it with the water that streamed off me. I was no sooner out of
the well with my prize, than I rushed into the sunlight, and took refuge
in a kind of shrubbery at the bottom of the garden. As I entered my
hiding-place, the bell which resounded when the great gate was opened,