nded than appeased, at the price,
alas, of his own peace of mind! For, once left alone, in solitude and
in the apartments on the Place de la Trinite, where twenty details
testified to the visit of Gorka, the weight of the perjured word of
honor became a heavy load to the novelist, so much the more heavy when
he discovered the calculating plan followed by Boleslas. His tardy
penetration permitted him to review the general outline of their
conversation. He perceived that not one of his interlocutor's sentences,
not even the most agitated, had been uttered at random. From reply to
reply, from confidence to confidence, he, Dorsenne, had become involved
in the dilemma without being able to foresee or to avoid it; he would
either have had to accuse a woman or to lie with one of those lies which
a manly conscience does not easily pardon. He did not forgive himself
for it.

"It is so much worse," said he to himself, "as it will prevent nothing.
A person vile enough to pen anonymous letters will not stop there. She
will find the means of again unchaining the madman.... But who
wrote those letters? Gorka may have forged them in order to have an
opportunity to ask me the question he did.... And yet, no.... There
are two indisputable facts--his state of jealousy and his extraordinary
return. Both would lead one to suppose a third, a warning. But given by
whom?... He told me of twelve anonymous letters.... Let us assume that
he received one or two.... But who is the author of those?"

The immediate development of the drama in which Julien found himself
involved was embodied in the answer to the question. It was not easy
to formulate. The Italians have a proverb of singular depth which the
novelist recalled at that moment. He had laughed a great deal when
he heard sententious Egiste Brancadori repeat it. He repeated it to
himself, and he understood its meaning. 'Chi non sa fingersi amico, non
sa essere nemico. "He who does not know how to disguise himself as
a friend, does not know how to be an enemy." In the little corner of
society in which Countess Steno, the Gorkas and Lincoln Maitland moved,
who was hypocritical and spiteful enough to practise that counsel?

"It is not Madame Steno," thought Julien; "she has related all herself
to her lover. I knew a similar case. But it involved degraded Parisians,
not a Dogesse of the sixteenth century found intact in the Venice of
today, like a flower of that period preserved. Let us strike