y dear, if it should be so, you are now richly provided for; all
that I have here I give to you." And with that he takes up the casket or
case, "Here," says he, "hold your hand; there is a good estate for you
in this case; if anything happens to me 'tis all your own. I give it
you for yourself;" and with that he put the casket, the fine ring, and
his gold watch all into my hands, and the key of his scrutoire besides,
adding, "And in my scrutoire there is some money; it is all your own."

I stared at him as if I was frighted, for I thought all his face looked
like a death's-head; and then immediately I thought I perceived his head
all bloody, and then his clothes looked bloody too, and immediately it
all went off, and he looked as he really did. Immediately I fell
a-crying, and hung about him. "My dear," said I, "I am frighted to
death; you shall not go. Depend upon it some mischief will befall you."
I did not tell him how my vapourish fancy had represented him to me;
that, I thought, was not proper. Besides, he would only have laughed at
me, and would have gone away with a jest about it; but I pressed him
seriously not to go that day, or, if he did, to promise me to come home
to Paris again by daylight. He looked a little graver then than he did
before, told me he was not apprehensive of the least danger, but if
there was, he would either take care to come in the day, or, as he had
said before, would stay all night.

But all these promises came to nothing, for he was set upon in the open
day and robbed by three men on horseback, masked, as he went; and one of
them, who, it seems, rifled him while the rest stood to stop the coach,
stabbed him into the body with a sword, so that he died immediately. He
had a footman behind the coach, who they knocked down with the stock or
butt-end of a carbine. They were supposed to kill him because of the
disappointment they met with in not getting his case or casket of
diamonds, which they knew he carried about him; and this was supposed
because, after they had killed him, they made the coachman drive out of
the road a long way over the heath, till they came to a convenient
place, where they pulled him out of the coach and searched his clothes
more narrowly than they could do while he was alive. But they found
nothing but his little ring, six pistoles, and the value of about seven
livres in small moneys.

This was a dreadful blow to me, though I cannot say I was so surprised
as I sho