Jenny's menaces were. There are persecutions against which the
law is powerless. But he dissimulated his alarm under the blandest
air he could assume.

"Hear me, my child," said he. "If I give you my word of honor to
tell you the truth, you'll believe me, won't you?"

She hesitated a moment, and said:

"Yes, you are honorable; I will believe you."

"Then, I swear to you that Tremorel hopes to marry a young girl who
is immensely rich, whose dowry will secure his future."

"He tells you so; he wants you to believe it."

"Why should he? Since he came to Valfeuillu, he could have had no
other affair than this with you. He lives in my house, as if he
were my brother, between my wife and myself, and I could tell you
how he spends his time every hour of every day as well as what I do
myself."

Jenny opened her mouth to reply, but a sudden reflection froze the
words on her lips. She remained silent and blushed violently,
looking at Sauvresy with an indefinable expression. He did not
observe this, being inspired by a restless though aimless curiosity.
This proof, which Jenny talked about, worried him.

"Suppose," said he, "you should show me this letter."

She seemed to feel at these words an electric shock.

"To you?" she said, shuddering. "Never!"

If, when one is sleeping, the thunder rolls and the storm bursts,
it often happens that the sleep is not troubled; then suddenly, at
a certain moment, the imperceptible flutter of a passing insect's
wing awakens one.

Jenny's shudder was like such a fluttering to Sauvresy. The sinister
light of doubt struck on his soul. Now his confidence, his
happiness, his repose, were gone forever. He rose with a flashing
eye and trembling lips.

"Give me the letter," said he, in an imperious tone. Jenny recoiled
with terror. She tried to conceal her agitation, to smile, to turn
the matter into a joke.

"Not to-day," said she. "Another time; you are too curious."

But Sauvresy's anger was terrible; he became as purple as if he had
had a stroke of apoplexy, and he repeated, in a choking voice:

"The letter, I demand the letter."

"Impossible," said Jenny. "Because," she added, struck with an
idea, "I haven't got it here."

"Where is it?"

"At my room, in Paris."

"Come, then, let us go there."

She saw that she was caught; and she could find no more excuses,
quick-witted as she was. She might, however, easily have followed
Sauvresy, put his suspicions to sleep with he