ver the bridge at a rapid
trot. Mademoiselle Scuderi emptied the contents of her smelling-bottle
out over the fainting La Martiniere, who at last opened her eyes, and,
shuddering and quaking, clinging convulsively to her mistress, with
fear and horror in her pale face, groaned out with difficulty, "For the
love of the Virgin, what did that terrible man want? It was he who
brought you the jewels on that awful night." Mademoiselle Scuderi
calmed her, pointing out that nothing very dreadful had happened after
all, and that the immediate business in hand was to ascertain the
contents of the letter. She opened it, and read as follows:--

"A dark and cruel fatality, which _you_ could dispel, is driving me
into an abyss. I conjure you--as a son would a mother, in the glow of
filial affection--to send the necklace and bracelets to Master Rene
Cardillac, on some pretence or other--say, to have something altered,
or improved. Your welfare---your very life--depend on your doing this.
If you do not comply before the day after to-morrow, I will force my
way into your house, and kill myself before your eyes."

"Thus much is certain, at all events," said Mademoiselle Scuderi, when
she had read this letter, "that, whether this mysterious man belongs to
the band of robbers and murderers, or not, he has no very evil designs
against me. If he had been able to see me and speak to me on that
night, who knows what strange events, what dark concatenation of
circumstances would have been made known to me, of which, at present, I
seek, in my soul, the very faintest inkling in vain. But, be the matter
as it may, that which I am enjoined in this letter to do, I certainly
_shall_ do, were it for nothing else than to be rid of those fatal
jewels, which seem to me as if they must be some diabolical talisman of
the Prince of Darkness's very own. Cardillac is not very likely to let
them out of his hands again, if once he gets hold of them."

She intended to take them to him next day; but it seemed as if all the
_beaux esprits_ of Paris had entered into a league to assail and
besiege her with verses, dramas, and anecdotes. Scarce had La Chapelle
finished reading the scenes of a tragedy, and declared that he
considered he had now vanquished Racine, when the latter himself came
in, and discomfited him with the pathetic speech of one of his kings,
until Boileau sent some of his fireballs soaring up into the dark sky
of the tragedies, by way of changing