nd looked at me,
with the steady vindictive malice of a woman who never forgot and never
forgave.

"I have been listening to your conversation with my husband," she said.
"If I had been in HIS place--I would have laid you dead on the
hearthrug."

With those words she opened her book, and never looked at me or spoke
to me from that time till the time when her husband woke.

He opened his eyes and rose from the sofa, accurately to an hour from
the time when he had gone to sleep.

"I feel infinitely refreshed," he remarked. "Eleanor, my good wife,
are you all ready upstairs? That is well. My little packing here can
be completed in ten minutes--my travelling-dress assumed in ten minutes
more. What remains before the agent comes?" He looked about the room,
and noticed the cage with his white mice in it. "Ah!" he cried
piteously, "a last laceration of my sympathies still remains. My
innocent pets! my little cherished children! what am I to do with them?
For the present we are settled nowhere; for the present we travel
incessantly--the less baggage we carry the better for ourselves. My
cockatoo, my canaries, and my little mice--who will cherish them when
their good Papa is gone?"

He walked about the room deep in thought. He had not been at all
troubled about writing his confession, but he was visibly perplexed and
distressed about the far more important question of the disposal of his
pets. After long consideration he suddenly sat down again at the
writing-table.

"An idea!" he exclaimed. "I will offer my canaries and my cockatoo to
this vast Metropolis--my agent shall present them in my name to the
Zoological Gardens of London. The Document that describes them shall
be drawn out on the spot."

He began to write, repeating the words as they flowed from his pen.

"Number one. Cockatoo of transcendent plumage: attraction, of himself,
to all visitors of taste. Number two. Canaries of unrivalled vivacity
and intelligence: worthy of the garden of Eden, worthy also of the
garden in the Regent's Park. Homage to British Zoology. Offered by
Fosco."

The pen spluttered again, and the flourish was attached to his
signature.

"Count! you have not included the mice," said Madame Fosco

He left the table, took her hand, and placed it on his heart.

"All human resolution, Eleanor," he said solemnly, "has its limits. MY
limits are inscribed on that Document. I cannot part with my white
mice. Bear with me, m