"It began with words of startling truth
relative to my own situation. That our affairs are known to others we
may be sure, since we know theirs. We should, consequently, remember
that we are at the mercy of their indiscretion, as they are at ours.
The beginning of the note served as a guarantee of the truth of the end,
which was a detailed, minute recital of an intrigue which Madame Steno
had been carrying on during my absence, and with whom? With the man
whom I always mistrusted, that dauber who wanted to paint Alba's
portrait--but whose desires I nipped in the bud--with the fellow who
degraded himself by a shameful marriage for money, and who calls himself
an artist--with that American--with Lincoln Maitland!"

Although the childish and unjust hatred of the jealous--the hatred which
degrades us in lowering the one we love-had poisoned his discourse with
its bitterness, he did not cease watching Dorsenne. He partly raised
himself on the couch and thrust his head forward as he uttered the name
of his rival, glancing keenly at the novelist meanwhile. The latter
fortunately had been rendered indignant at the news of the anonymous
letter, and he repeated, with an astonishment which in no way aided his
interlocutor:

"Wait," resumed Boleslas; "that was merely a beginning. The next day I
received another letter, written and sent under the same conditions; the
day after, a third. I have twelve of them--do you hear? twelve--in my
portfolio, and all composed with the same atrocious knowledge of the
circle in which we move, as was the first. At the same time I was
receiving letters from my poor wife, and all coincided, in the terrible
series, in a frightful concordance. The anonymous letter told me:
'To-day they were together two hours and a quarter,' while Maud wrote:
'I could not go out to-day, as agreed upon, with Madame Steno, for
she had a headache.' Then the portrait of Alba, of which they told
me incidentally. The anonymous letters detailed to me the events, the
prolongation of sitting, while my wife wrote: 'We again went to see
Alba's portrait yesterday. The painter erased what he had done.'
Finally it became impossible for me to endure it. With their abominable
minuteness of detail, the anonymous letters gave me even the address of
their rendezvous! I set out. I said to myself, 'If I announce my arrival
to my wife they will find it out, they will escape me.' I intended to
surprise them. I wanted--Do I know what I wante