your logic is cold and
calculating; it always condemns--it never absolves."

Manicamp's concluding words scattered to the winds the last doubt which
lingered, not in Madame's heart, but in her head. She was no longer a
princess full of scruples, nor a woman with her ever-returning
suspicions, but one whose heart had just felt the mortal chill of a
wound. "Wounded to death!" she murmured, in a faltering voice, "oh,
Monsieur de Manicamp! did you not say, wounded to death?"

Manicamp returned no other answer than a deep sigh.

"And so you said that the comte is dangerously wounded?" continued the
princess.

"Yes, madame; one of his hands is shattered, and he has a bullet lodged
in his breast."

"Gracious heavens!" resumed the princess, with a feverish excitement,
"this is horrible, Monsieur de Manicamp! a hand shattered, do you say,
and a bullet in his breast? And that coward! that wretch! that assassin,
De Wardes, who did it!"

Manicamp seemed overcome by a violent emotion. He had, in fact,
displayed no little energy in the latter part of his speech. As for
Madame, she entirely threw aside all regard for the formal observances
of propriety which society imposes: for when, with her, passion spoke in
accents either of anger or sympathy, nothing could any longer restrain
her impulses. Madame approached Manicamp, who had sunk down upon a seat,
as if his grief were a sufficiently powerful excuse for his infraction
of one of the laws of etiquette. "Monsieur," she said, seizing him by
the hand, "be frank with me."

Manicamp looked up.

"Is M. de Guiche in danger of death?"

"Doubly so, madame," he replied; "in the first place on account of the
hemorrhage which has taken place, an artery having been injured in the
hand; and next, in consequence of the wound in his breast, which
may--the doctor is afraid of it, at least--have injured some vital
part."

"He may die, then?"

"Die, yes, madame; and without even having had the consolation of
knowing that you have been told of his devotion."

"You will tell him."

"I?"

"Yes; are you not his friend?"

"I? oh no, madame. I will only tell M. de Guiche--if, indeed, he is
still in a condition to hear me--I will only tell him what I have
seen--that is, your cruelty for him."

"Oh, monsieur, you will not be guilty of such barbarity!"

"Indeed, madame, I shall speak the truth, for nature is very energetic
in a man of his age. The physicians are clever men, and if, by