d; but I had not
received a formal assurance of it. All the letters that I read spoke
distinctly of your purpose, detailed your plan minutely; but not one
pointed to, or in any way confirmed, the execution of your project."

The count gazed at his son with a look of intense surprise. He
recollected distinctly all the letters; and he could remember, that,
in writing to Valerie, he had over and over again rejoiced at their
success, thanking her for having acted in accordance with his wishes.

"You did not go to the end of them, then, viscount," he said, "you did
not read them all?"

"Every line, sir, and with an attention that you may well understand.
The last letter shown me simply announced to Madame Gerdy the arrival
of Claudine Lerouge, the nurse who was charged with accomplishing the
substitution. I know nothing beyond that."

"These proofs amount to nothing," muttered the count. "A man may form a
plan, cherish it for a long time, and at the last moment abandon it; it
often happens so."

He reproached himself for having answered so hastily. Albert had had
only serious suspicions, and he had changed them to certainty. What
stupidity!

"There can be no possible doubt," he said to himself; "Valerie has
destroyed the most conclusive letters, those which appeared to her the
most dangerous, those I wrote after the substitution. But why has she
preserved these others, compromising enough in themselves? and why,
after having preserved them, has she let them go out of her possession?"

Without moving, Albert awaited a word from the count. What would it be?
No doubt, the old nobleman was at that moment deciding what he should
do.

"Perhaps she is dead!" said M. de Commarin aloud.

And at the thought that Valerie was dead, without his having again seen
her, he started painfully. His heart, after more than twenty years of
voluntary separation, still suffered, so deeply rooted was this first
love of his youth. He had cursed her; at this moment he pardoned her.
True, she had deceived him; but did he not owe to her the only years of
happiness he had ever known? Had she not formed all the poetry of his
youth? Had he experienced, since leaving her, one single hour of joy
or forgetfulness? In his present frame of mind, his heart retained only
happy memories, like a vase which, once filled with precious perfumes,
retains the odour until it is destroyed.

"Poor woman!" he murmured.

He sighed deeply. Three or four times hi