have preferred to die, rather than lose me
thus."

"But he knows nothing, suspects nothing of it."

"You are mistaken; Sauvresy knows all."

"Impossible!"

"All, I tell you--and he has known all since that day when he came
home so late from hunting. Don't you remember that I noticed his
strange look, and said to you that my husband suspected something?
You shrugged your shoulders. Do you forget the steps in the
vestibule the night I went to your room? He had been spying on us.
Well, do you want a more certain proof? Look at this letter,
which I found, crumpled up and wet, in one of his vest pockets."

She showed him the letter which Sauvresy had forcibly taken from
Jenny, and he recognized it well.

"It is a fatality," said he, overwhelmed. "But we can separate
and break off with each other. Bertha, I can go away."

"It's too late. Believe me, Hector, we are to-day defending our
lives. Ah, you don't know Clement! You don't know what the fury
of a man like him can be, when he sees that his confidence has
been outrageously abused, and his trust vilely betrayed. If he
has said nothing to me, and has not let us see any traces of his
implacable anger, it is because he is meditating some frightful
vengeance."

This was only too probable, and Hector saw it clearly.

"What shall we do?" he asked, in a hoarse voice; he was almost
speechless.

"Find out what change he has made in his will."

"But how?"

"I don't know yet. I came to ask your advice, and I find you more
cowardly than a woman. Let me act, then; don't do anything yourself;
I will do all."

He essayed an objection.

"Enough," said she. "He must not ruin us after all--I will see
--I will think."

Someone below called her. She went down, leaving Hector overcome
with despair.

That evening, during which Bertha seemed happy and smiling, his
face finally betrayed so distinctly the traces of his anguish, that
Sauvresy tenderly asked him if he were not ill?

"You exhaust yourself tending on me, my good Hector," said he.
"How can I ever repay your devotion?"

Tremorel had not the strength to reply.

"And that man knows all," thought he. "What courage! What fate
can he be reserving for us?"

The scene which was passing before Hector's eyes made his flesh
creep. Every time that Bertha gave her husband his medicine, she
took a hair-pin from her tresses, and plunged it into the little
vial which she had shown him, taking up thus some small, white
g