o faint, quite out of breath, like a person who has just been
pursued and had a great fright. When this gentleman began to receive
some education, and learn good manners, mademoiselle, seeing that she
could never have any other husband, since he was always talking of
killing any man who dared to present himself, hoped he would get rid of
his fierceness, and was most kind and good to him. She even nursed him
during his illness; not that she liked and esteemed him as much as M.
Marcasse was pleased to say in his version; but she was always afraid
that in his delirium he might reveal, either to the servants or her
father, the secret of the injury he had done her. This her modesty and
pride made her most anxious to conceal, as all the ladies present will
readily understand. When the family went to Paris for the winter of '77,
M. Bernard became jealous and tyrannical and threatened so frequently
to kill M. de la Marche that mademoiselle was obliged to send the latter
away. After that she had some violent scenes with Bernard, and declared
that she did not and never would love him. In his rage and grief--for
it cannot be denied that he was enamoured of her in his tigerish
fashion--he went off to America, and during the six years he spent there
his letters seemed to show that he had much improved. By the time he
returned, mademoiselle had made up her mind to be an old maid, and had
become quite calm again. And M. Bernard, too, seemed to have grown into
a fairly good young gentleman. However, through seeing her every day
and everlastingly leaning over the back of her arm-chair, or winding
her skeins of wool and whispering to her while her father was asleep, he
fell so deeply in love again that he lost his head. I do not wish to be
too hard on him, poor creature! and I fancy his right place is in the
asylum rather than on the scaffold. He used to shout and groan all night
long; and the letters he wrote her were so stupid that she used to smile
as she read them and then put them in her pocket without answering them.
Here is one of these letters that I found upon her when I undressed her
after the horrible deed; a bullet has gone through it, and it is
stained with blood, but enough may still be read to show that monsieur
frequently intended to kill mademoiselle."

So saying, she put down on the table a sheet of paper half burnt
and half covered with blood, which sent a shudder through the
spectators--genuine with some of them, mere