performed, and when la Peyrade rushed to the
lodge to inquire for his letter, which he thought he saw in the case
that belonged to him, the porter and his wife were both absent and their
door was locked. The wife was doing some household work in the building,
and Coffinet himself, taking advantage of that circumstance, had allowed
a friend to entice him into a neighboring wine-shop, where, between
two glasses, he was supporting, against a republican who was talking
disrespectfully against it, the cause of the owners of property.

It was twenty minutes before the worthy porter, remembering the
"property" entrusted to his charge, decided to return to his post. It is
easy to imagine the reproaches with which la Peyrade overwhelmed him.
He excused himself by saying that he had gone to do a commission for
Mademoiselle, and that he couldn't be at the door and where his masters
chose to send him at the same time. At last, however, he gave the lawyer
a letter bearing the Paris postmark.

With his heart rather than his eyes la Peyrade recognized the
handwriting, and, turning over the missive, the arms and motto confirmed
the hope that he had reached the end of the cruellest emotion he had
ever in his life experienced. To read that letter before that odious
porter seemed to him a profanation. With a refinement of feeling which
all lovers will understand, he gave himself the pleasure of pausing
before his happiness; he would not even unseal that blissful note until
the moment when, with closed doors and no interruptions to distract him,
he could enjoy at his ease the delicious sensation of which his heart
had a foretaste.

Rushing up the staircase two steps at a time, the now joyous lover
committed the childish absurdity of locking himself in; then, having
settled himself at his ease before his desk, and having broken the seal
with religious care, he was forced to press his hand on his heart, which
seemed to burst from his bosom, before he could summon calmness to read
the following letter:--

Dear Monsieur,--I disappear forever, because my play is played
out. I thank you for having made it both attractive and easy. By
setting against you the Thuilliers and Collevilles (who are fully
informed of your sentiments towards them), and by relating in a
manner most mortifying to their bourgeois self-love the true
reason of your sudden and pitiless rupture with them, I am proud
and happy to believe that I have done you