ring them into small pieces, packets
of letters, on satin paper, tinted, perfumed, adorned with crests, coats
of arms, small flags with devices, covered with handwritings, fine,
hurried, scrawling, entwining, persuasive; and all those flimsy pages
went whirling one over the other in eddying streams of water which
crumpled them, soiled them, washed out their tender links before
allowing them to disappear with a gurgle down the drain.

They were love-letters and of every kind, from the note of the
adventuress, "_I saw you pass yesterday in the Bois, M. le Duc_," to the
aristocratic reproaches of the last mistress but one, and the complaints
of ladies deserted, and the page, still fresh, of recent confidences.
Monpavon was in the secret of all these mysteries--put a name on each of
them: "That is Mme. Moor. Hallo! Mme. d'Athis!" A confusion of coronets
and initials, of caprices and old habits, sullied by the promiscuity of
this moment, all engulfed in the horrid closet by the light of a lamp,
with the noise of an intermittent gush of water, departing into oblivion
by a shameful road. Suddenly Jenkins paused in his work of destruction.
Two satin-gray letters trembled as he held them in his fingers.

"Who is that?" asked Monpavon, noticing the unfamiliar handwriting and
the Irishman's nervous excitement. "Ah, doctor, if you want to read them
all, we shall never have finished."

Jenkins, his cheeks flushed, the two letters in his hand, was consumed
by a desire to carry them away, to pore over them at his ease, to
martyrize himself with delight by reading them, perhaps also to forge
out of this correspondence a weapon for himself against the imprudent
woman who had signed her name. But the rigorous correctness of the
marquis made him afraid. How could he distract his attention--get him
away? The opportunity occurred of its own accord. Among the letters, a
tiny page written in a senile and shaky hand, caught the attention
of the charlatan, who said with an ingenuous air: "Oh, oh! here is
something that does not look much like a _billet-doux. 'Mon Duc, to the
rescue--I am sinking! The Court of Exchequer has once more stuck its
nose into my affairs.'_"

"What are you reading there?" exclaimed Monpavon abruptly, snatching the
letter from his hands. And immediately, thanks to Mora's negligence in
thus allowing such private letters to lie about, the terrible situation
in which he would be left by the death of his protector return