ible that you and I should have secrets from one another? For
the last few moments I have seen you struggling between a conviction of
our love and vague fears. But that conviction is clear within us, is
it not? And these doubts and fears, do they not seem to you dark and
unnatural? Why not stay in that clear light of love you cannot doubt?
When I have told you all, you will still desire to know more; and yet I
myself do not know what the extraordinary words of that man meant. What
I fear is that this may lead to some fatal affair between you. I would
rather that we both forget this unpleasant moment. But, in any case,
swear to me that you will let this singular adventure explain itself
naturally. Here are the facts. Monsieur de Maulincour declared to me
that the three accidents you have heard mentioned--the falling of a
stone on his servant, the breaking down of his cabriolet, and his duel
about Madame de Serizy--were the result of some plot I had laid against
him. He also threatened to reveal to you the cause of my desire to
destroy him. Can you imagine what all this means? My emotion came from
the sight of his face convulsed with madness, his haggard eyes, and also
his words, broken by some violent inward emotion. I thought him mad.
That is all that took place. Now, I should be less than a woman if I had
not perceived that for over a year I have become, as they call it, the
passion of Monsieur de Maulincour. He has never seen me except at a
ball; and our intercourse has been most insignificant,--merely that
which every one shares at a ball. Perhaps he wants to disunite us, so
that he may find me at some future time alone and unprotected. There,
see! already you are frowning! Oh, how cordially I hate society! We were
so happy without him; why take any notice of him? Jules, I entreat you,
forget all this! To-morrow we shall, no doubt, hear that Monsieur de
Maulincour has gone mad."

"What a singular affair!" thought Jules, as the carriage stopped under
the peristyle of their house. He gave his arm to his wife and together
they went up to their apartments.

To develop this history in all its truth of detail, and to follow its
course through many windings, it is necessary here to divulge some of
love's secrets, to glide beneath the ceilings of a marriage chamber, not
shamelessly, but like Trilby, frightening neither Dougal nor Jeannie,
alarming no one,--being as chaste as our noble French language requires,
and as bold a