rmans. Your future is beautiful; cherish the
sweetest dreams; the woman you love will realize them all.

Night is a bad counsellor, so I dare not make any resolutions, or come
to any decision at this dark hour. I shall wait for the sun to enlighten
my mind.

In my despair I have the mournful consolation of knowing that Irene is
in Paris. This great city has no undiscovered secrets; everything and
every person hid in its many houses is obliged sooner or later to appear
in the streets. I form the most extravagant projects; I will buy, if
necessary, the indiscretion of all the discreet lips that guard the
doors; I shall recruit an army of salaried spies. On the coast of the
Coromandel there is a tribe of Indians whose profession is to dive into
the Gulf of Bengal, that immense bathing-tub of the sun, and search for
a beautiful pearl that lies buried among the coral beds at the bottom of
the ocean. It is a pearl of great price, as valuable as the finest
diamond.... Irene is my pearl of great price, and I will search for and
find her in this great ocean of men and houses called Paris.... After
thinking and wondering till I am dizzy and sick at heart, I have come to
the conclusion that Irene is acting in this manner to test my love--this
thought consoles me a little, and I try to drown my sorrow in the
thought of our mutual happiness, when I shall have triumphantly passed
through the ordeal.

The most charming of women is willing to believe that everybody loves
except her lover.

ROGER DE MONBERT.

XII.

IRENE DE CHATEAUDUN _to_ MME. LA VICOMTESSE DE BRAIMES,
Grenoble, (Isere).

PARIS, June 2d--Midnight.

Oh! How indignant I am! How angry and mortified are my feelings! Good
Heavens! how his shameful conduct makes me hate and despise him!... I
will try to be calm--to collect my scattered thoughts and give you a
clear account of what has just occurred--tell you how all of my plans
are destroyed--how I am once more alone in this cruel world, more sad,
more discouraged and more hopeless than I ever was in my darkest days of
misery and poverty.... but I cannot be calm--it is impossible for me to
control my indignation when I think of the shameful behavior of this
man--of his gross impertinence--his insolent duplicity.... Well, I went
to the Odeon; M. de Monbert was there, I saw him, he certainly made no
attempt to conceal his presence; you know he plumes himself upon being
open and frank--never hides anything fr