rness where I could hide you?--Be quite easy. The
Count, who for nine years has never allowed himself to be seen here,
will never go there without your permission. You have his sublime
devotion of nine years as a guarantee for your tranquillity. You may
therefore discuss the future in perfect confidence with my uncle and
me. My uncle has as much influence as a Minister of State. So compose
yourself; do not exaggerate your misfortune. A priest whose hair has
grown white in the exercise of his functions is not a boy; you will be
understood by him to whom every passion has been confided for nearly
fifty years now, and who weighs in his hands the ponderous heart of
kings and princes. If he is stern under his stole, in the presence of
your flowers he will be as tender as they are, and as indulgent as his
Divine Master.'

"I left the Countess at midnight; she was apparently calm, but
depressed, and had some secret purpose which no perspicacity could
guess. I found the Count a few paces off, in the Rue Saint-Maur. Drawn
by an irresistible attraction, he had quitted the spot on the Boulevards
where we had agreed to meet.

"'What a night my poor child will go through!' he exclaimed, when I had
finished my account of the scene that had just taken place. 'Supposing I
were to go to her!' he added; 'supposing she were to see me suddenly?'

"'At this moment she is capable of throwing herself out of the window,'
I replied. 'The Countess is one of those Lucretias who could not survive
any violence, even if it were done by a man into whose arms she could
throw herself.'

"'You are young,' he answered; 'you do not know that in a soul tossed by
such dreadful alternatives the will is like waters of a lake lashed by a
tempest; the wind changes every instant, and the waves are driven now to
one shore, now to the other. During this night the chances are quite
as great that on seeing me Honorine might rush into my arms as that she
would throw herself out of the window.'

"'And you would accept the equal chances,' said I.

"'Well, come,' said he, 'I have at home, to enable me to wait till
to-morrow, a dose of opium which Desplein prepared for me to send me to
sleep without any risk!'

"Next day at noon Gobain brought me a letter, telling me that the
Countess had gone to bed at six, worn out with fatigue, and that, having
taken a soothing draught prepared by the chemist, she had now fallen
asleep.

"This is her letter, of which I kept