een the chevalier and Mademoiselle de Guerchi had just at
the most interesting moment been so unceremoniously interrupted by the
arrival of the duke, he had become so absorbed in watching them that he
had not noticed that the partition was bending before the pressure of
his body, and that just as the duke drew his sword it suddenly gave
way, and he, Quennebert, being thus left without support, tumbled
head foremost into the next room, among a perfect chaos of overturned
furniture and lamps; that almost before he could rise he was forced
to draw in self-defence, and had to make his escape, defending himself
against both the duke and the chevalier; that they had pursued him so
hotly, that when he found himself free he was too far from the house and
the hour was too advanced to admit of his returning, Quennebert added
innumerable protestations of friendship, devotion, and gratitude, and,
furnished with his twelve hundred crowns, went away, leaving the widow
reassured as to his safety, but still shaken from her fright.

While the notary was thus soothing the widow, Angelique was exhausting
all the expedients her trade had taught her in the attempt to remove
the duke's suspicions. She asserted she was the victim of an unforeseen
attack which nothing in her conduct had ever authorised. The young
Chevalier de Moranges had, gained admittance, she declared, under the
pretext that he brought her news from the duke, the one man who occupied
her thoughts, the sole object of her love. The chevalier had seen her
lover, he said, a few days before, and by cleverly appealing to things
back, he had led her to fear that the duke had grown tired of her, and
that a new conquest was the cause of his absence. She had not believed
these insinuations, although his long silence would have justified
the most mortifying suppositions, the most cruel doubts. At length
the chevalier had grown bolder, and had declared his passion for her;
whereupon she had risen and ordered him to leave her. Just at that
moment the duke had entered, and had taken the natural agitation and
confusion of the chevalier as signs of her guilt. Some explanation was
also necessary to account for the presence of the two other visitors
of whom he had been told below stairs. As he knew nothing at all about
them, the servant who admitted them never having seen either of them
before, she acknowledged that two gentlemen had called earlier in the
evening; that they had refused to sen