fe this year at
Mousseaux, when he heard a gentle knock at his door. He thought it was
the young critic, or the Vicomte de Bretigny, or perhaps Laniboire, who
had been very unquiet of late. All these had often prolonged the evening
in his room, which was the largest and most convenient, and had a dainty
smoking-room attached to it. He was very much surprised on opening his
door to see by the light of the painted windows that the long corridor
of the first floor was absolutely silent and deserted, right away to the
guard-room, where a ray of moonlight showed the outline of the carving
on the massive door. He was going back to his seat, when there came
another knock. It came from the smoking-room, which communicated by a
little door under the hangings with a narrow passage in the thickness
of the wall leading to the rooms of the Duchess. The arrangement, dating
much earlier than the restorations, was not known to him: and, as he
remembered certain conversations during the last few days, when the
men were alone, and especially some of the stories of old Laniboire, his
first thought was 'Whew! I hope she did not hear us.' He drew the bolt
and the Duchess passed him without a word, and laying down on the table
where he had been writing a bundle of yellowish papers, with which her
delicate fingers played nervously, she said in a serious voice:

'I want you to give me your advice; you are my friend, and I have no one
else to confide in.'

No one but him--poor woman! And she did not take warning from the
cunning watchful predatory glance, which shifted from the letter,
imprudently left open on the table where she might have read it, to
herself as she stood there with her arms bare and heavy hair coiled
round and round her head. He was thinking, 'What does she want? What
has she come for?' She, absorbed in the requickened wrath which had
been rising and choking her since the morning, panted out in low broken
sentences, 'Just before you came, he sent Lavaux--he did! he sent
Lavaux--to ask for his letters!--I gave his impudent cheeks such a
reception that he won't come again.--His letters, indeed!--these are
what he wanted.'

She held out the roll, her brief, as it might be called, against the
partner of her affections, showing what she had paid to raise the man
out of the gutter.

'Take them, look at them! They are really quite interesting! 'He turned
over the odd collection, smelling now of the boudoir, but better
suited to