into a state of complete insensibility.
"Come," she said to her companion, "we must not remain here any longer;
I shall be committing some folly or other."

"Madame, madame, your highness is forgetting your mask!" said her
vigilant companion.

"Pick it up," replied her mistress, as she tottered almost senseless
toward the staircase, and as the street-door had been left only half
closed, the two women, light as birds, passed through it, and with
hurried steps returned to the palace. One of them ascended toward
Madame's apartments, where she disappeared; the other entered the room
belonging to the maids of honor, namely, on the _entresol_, and having
reached her own room, she sat down before a table, and without giving
herself time even to breathe, wrote the following letter:

"This evening Madame has been to see M. de Guiche. Everything is
going on well on this side. See that yours is the same, and do not
forget to burn this paper."

She then folded the letter in a long thin form, and leaving her room
with every possible precaution, crossed a corridor which led to the
apartments appropriated to the gentlemen attached to Monsieur's service.
She stopped before a door, under which, having previously knocked twice
in a short quick manner, she thrust the paper, and fled. Then, returning
to her own room, she removed every trace of her having gone out, and
also of having written the letter. Amid the investigations she was so
diligently pursuing she perceived on the table the mask which belonged
to Madame, and which, according to her mistress's directions, she had
brought back, but had forgotten to restore to her. "Oh! oh!" she said,
"I must not forget to do to-morrow what I have forgotten to do to-day."

And she took hold of the velvet mask by that part of it which covered
the cheeks, and feeling that her thumb was wet, she looked at it. It was
not only wet, but reddened. The mask had fallen upon one of the spots of
blood which, we have already said, stained the floor, and from the black
velvet outside, which had accidentally come into contact with it, the
blood had passed through to the inside and stained the white cambric
lining. "Oh! oh!" said Montalais, for doubtless our readers have already
recognized her by these various maneuvers, "I shall not give her back
her mask, it is far too precious now."

And rising from her seat, she ran toward a box made of maple wood, which
inclosed different articles of t