silence, the old woman shrieked with a voice full of horror that turned
everybody's blood cold: "Madame!--those jewels--on your neck--that black
butterfly--'tis the very same--which on that fearful night--that
accursed Fatia Negra--tore from my neck--those black earrings which he
tore from my ears--one eye of the butterfly is a blue diamond!"

Henrietta felt as if the floor were slipping away from beneath her feet.
She was wearing stolen jewels on her neck, and their former owner had
recognized them!

She heard a hissing and a murmuring all around her. She gazed about her,
possibly for a protector, and she perceived that she was standing alone
in the midst of the room and that everyone recoiled from her, even her
companion, and all eyes were fixed upon her. She had a feeling of being
branded with red-hot irons as she stood there, dishonoured and
unprotected in the midst of so many strangers, and over against her a
terrible accuser who had the horrible right to ask her: "Madame, where
did you get those stolen jewels?"--and she had nought to say to such a
question.

At that moment a manly voice, which she at once recognized, rang out
close beside her.

"Madame, give me your arm!--I bought those jewels for you at Paris. I
will be responsible for them."

It was her husband. And with that, he strode up to his wife, seized her
hand and, casting a glance at the surrounding throng, cried in a
threatening voice to those closest to him: "Whoever dares to cast a
disrespectful glance upon my wife, will have to reckon with me. Make
room there!"

Henrietta saw how the crowd made way, how everyone stepped aside at
this word of command; she saw even the shaking widow sit down somewhere;
but then everything began to grow black before her eyes and she sank
swooning into the arms of the man whom, hitherto, she had hated so much,
and who in this most awful moment had been her sole deliverer! When she
came to again, she found herself in the carriage. Her husband had not
stayed a single instant longer in that town, but was conveying her,
though it was now night time, straight to Hidvar.

It is not very advisable to travel in pitch-black darkness along
mountain roads. Henrietta could gather from the slow jolting of the
coach that they were proceeding very cautiously. She opened the window
and peeped out. She then saw her husband walking along by the side of
the coach with a lantern in his hand picking his way. The coachman was
sitt