thought this over, and came to the conclusion that the
letter had once been meant for the post, but had been sent by hand.
Perhaps the writers may have occupied rooms in the same house. The
woman, in the anguish of her soul, may have sent the letter by a servant
to her husband, and he, transported by rage, may have hurriedly
scrawled this word across it, and returned it again: 'Take this to your
mistress.' Having settled this point, I attacked the cipher, and, after
fourteen hours' hard work, hit upon its meaning.

"Accidentally I held the piece of paper between myself and the light,
with the side on which the writing was turned from me, and read it at
once. It was a cryptogram of the simplest kind, as the letters forming
the words were simply reversed. I divided the letters into words,
and made out this sentence: '_Grace, je suis innocente. Ayez pitie;
rendez-moi notre enfant_ (Mercy, I am innocent. Give me back our son).'"

Hortebise snatched up the paper and glanced at it.

"You are right," said he; "it is the art of cipher writing in its
infancy."

"I had succeeded in reading it,--but how to make use of it! The mass of
waste paper in which I found it had been purchased from a servant in
a country house near Vendome. A friend of mine, who was accustomed to
drawing plans and maps, came to my aid, and discovered some faint
signs of a crest in one corner of the paper. With the aid of a powerful
magnifying glass, I discovered it to be the cognizance of the ducal
house of Champdoce. The light that guided me was faint and uncertain,
and many another man would have given up the quest. But the thought was
with me in my waking hours, and was the companion of my pillow during
the dark hours of the night. Six months later I knew that it was the
Duchess who had addressed this missive to her husband, and why she had
done so. By degrees I learned all the secret to which this scrap of
paper gave me the clue; and if I have been a long while over it, it is
because one link was wanting which I only discovered yesterday."

"Ah," said the doctor, "then Caroline Schimmel has spoken."

"Yes; drink was the magician that disclosed the secret that for twenty
years she had guarded with unswerving fidelity."

As Mascarin uttered these words he opened a drawer, and drew from it a
large pile of manuscript, which he waved over his head with an air of
triumph.

"This is the greatest work that I have ever done," exclaimed he. "Listen
to it