his office,
and himself left for Courbevoie, there to enlighten, if possible, her
unhappy victim as to the real character of his enchantress.

The interview was a painful one. The lover refused to hear a word
against his mistress. "Jeanne is my Antigone," he said. "She has
lavished on me all her care, her tenderness, her love, and she believes
in God." Mace told him of her past, of the revelations contained in the
prie-Dieu of this true believer, but he could make no impression. "I
forgive her past, I accept her present, and please understand me, no one
has the power to separate me from her." It was only when Mace placed in
his hands the bundle of burnt letters, that he might feel what he could
not see, and read him some passages from them, that the unhappy man
realised the full extent of his mistress' treachery. Feeling himself
dangerously ill, dying perhaps, M. de Saint Pierre had told the widow to
bring from his rooms to the Rue de Boulogne the contents of his private
desk. It contained some letters compromising to a woman's honour. These
he was anxious to destroy before it was too late. As he went through the
papers, his eyes bandaged, he gave them to the widow to throw into the
stove. He could hear the fire burning and feel its warmth. He heard the
widow take up the tongs. He asked her why she did so. She answered that
it was to keep the burning papers inside the stove. Now from Mace he
learnt the real truth. She had used the tongs to take out some of the
letters half burnt, letters which in her possession might be one day
useful instruments for levying blackmail on her lover. "To blind me,"
exclaimed M. de Saint Pierre, "to torture me, and then profit by my
condition to lie to me, to betray me--it's infamous--infamous!" His
dream was shattered. Mace had succeeded in his task; the disenchantment
of M. de Saint Pierre was complete. That night the fastidious widow
joined the thieves and prostitutes in the St. Lazare Prison.

It was all very well to imprison the widow, but her participation in the
outrage on M. de Saint Pierre was by no means established.

The reputed brother, who had been in the habit of attending on her at
the Rue de Boulogne, still eluded the searches of the police. In silence
lay the widow's only hope of baffling her enemies. Unfortunately for the
widow, confinement told on her nerves. She became anxious, excited. Her
very ignorance of what was going on around her, her lover's silence
made her