ready been
warned that we should wait upon you.'

The Countess had a very beautiful, cream-tinted complexion of a sort
which I particularly admire, but she grew whiter and whiter as she
looked up at me. Harsh lines deepened upon her face until she seemed,
even as I looked at her, to turn from youth into age.

'It is evident to me,' she said, 'that you are three impostors.'

If she had struck me across the face with her delicate hand she could
not have startled me more. It was not her words only, but the bitterness
with which she hissed them out.

'Indeed, madame,' said I. 'You do us less than justice. These are the
Colonel Despienne and Captain Tremeau. For myself, my name is Brigadier
Gerard, and I have only to mention it to assure anyone who has heard of
me that----'

'Oh, you villains!' she interrupted. 'You think that because I am only a
woman I am very easily to be hoodwinked! You miserable impostors!'

I looked at Despienne, who had turned white with anger, and at Tremeau,
who was tugging at his moustache.

'Madame,' said I, coldly, 'when the Emperor did us the honour to intrust
us with this mission, he gave me this amethyst ring as a token. I had
not thought that three honourable gentlemen would have needed such
corroboration, but I can only confute your unworthy suspicions by
placing it in your hands.'

She held it up in the light of the carriage lamp, and the most dreadful
expression of grief and of horror contorted her face.

'It is his!' she screamed, and then, 'Oh, my God, what have I done? What
have I done?'

I felt that something terrible had befallen. 'Quick, madame, quick!' I
cried. 'Give us the papers!'

'I have already given them.'

'Given them! To whom?'

'To three officers.'

'When?'

'Within the half-hour.'

'Where are they?'

'God help me, I do not know. They stopped the berline, and I handed them
over to them without hesitation, thinking that they had come from the
Emperor.'

It was a thunder-clap. But those are the moments when I am at my finest.

'You remain here,' said I, to my comrades. 'If three horsemen pass you,
stop them at any hazard. The lady will describe them to you. I will be
with you presently.' One shake of the bridle, and I was flying into
Fontainebleau as only Violette could have carried me. At the palace I
flung myself off, rushed up the stairs, brushed aside the lackeys who
would have stopped me, and pushed my way into the Emperor's own cabinet.
He and