o the Count's own hands. The young wife paid
twenty francs for that letter. The wretch who commits suicide must pay
for the opium, the pistol, the charcoal.

Hortense read and re-read the note; she saw nothing but this sheet of
white paper streaked with black lines; the universe held for her
nothing but that paper; everything was dark around her. The glare of the
conflagration that was consuming the edifice of her happiness lighted
up the page, for blackest night enfolded her. The shouts of her little
Wenceslas at play fell on her ear, as if he had been in the depths of a
valley and she on a high mountain. Thus insulted at four-and-twenty, in
all the splendor of her beauty, enhanced by pure and devoted love--it
was not a stab, it was death. The first shock had been merely on the
nerves, the physical frame had struggled in the grip of jealousy; but
now certainty had seized her soul, her body was unconscious.

For about ten minutes Hortense sat under the incubus of this oppression.
Then a vision of her mother appeared before her, and revulsion ensued;
she was calm and cool, and mistress of her reason.

She rang.

"Get Louise to help you, child," said she to the cook. "As quickly as
you can, pack up everything that belongs to me and everything wanted for
the little boy. I give you an hour. When all is ready, fetch a hackney
coach from the stand, and call me.

"Make no remarks! I am leaving the house, and shall take Louise with me.
You must stay here with monsieur; take good care of him----"

She went into her room, and wrote the following letter:--

"MONSIEUR LE COMTE,--

"The letter I enclose will sufficiently account for the
determination I have come to.

"When you read this, I shall have left your house and have found
refuge with my mother, taking our child with me.

"Do not imagine that I shall retrace my steps. Do not imagine that
I am acting with the rash haste of youth, without reflection, with
the anger of offended affection; you will be greatly mistaken.

"I have been thinking very deeply during the last fortnight of
life, of love, of our marriage, of our duties to each other. I
have known the perfect devotion of my mother; she has told me all
her sorrows! She has been heroical--every day for twenty-three
years. But I have not the strength to imitate her, not because I
love you less than she loves my father, but for reasons of spirit
and nature. Our home would be a hell;