his; and if you let it slip, you will repent the rest of your
life."

"But give me time to consult my family!"

"Your family--what a joke! It seems to me you have reached full age; and
then--what family? Your aunt, Madame de la Roche-Jugan?"

"Doubtless! I do not wish to offend her:"

"Ah, my dear cousin, don't be uneasy; suppress this uneasiness; I assure
you she will be delighted!"

"Why should she?"

"I have my reasons for thinking so;" and the young woman in uttering
these words was seized with a fit of sardonic laughter which came near
convulsion, so shaken were her nerves by the terrible tension.

Camors, to whom little by little the light fell stronger on the more
obscure points of the terrible enigma proposed to him, saw the necessity
of shortening a scene which had overtasked her faculties to an almost
insupportable degree. He rose:

"I am compelled to leave you," he said; "for I am not dining at home. But
I will come to-morrow, if you will permit me."

"Certainly. You authorize me to speak to the General?"

"Well, yes, for I really can see no reasonable objection."

"Very good. I adore you!" said the Marquise. She gave him her hand, which
he kissed and immediately departed.

It would have required a much keener vision than that of M. de Campvallon
to detect any break, or any discordance, in the audacious comedy which
had just been played before him by these two great artists.

The mute play of their eyes alone could have betrayed them; and that he
could not see.

As to their tranquil, easy, natural dialogue there was not in it a word
which he could seize upon, and which did not remove all his disquietude,
and confound all his suspicions. From this moment, and ever afterward,
every shadow was effaced from his mind; for the ability to imagine such a
plot as that in which his wife in her despair had sought refuge, or to
comprehend such depth of perversity, was not in the General's pure and
simple spirit.

When he reappeared before his wife, on leaving his concealment, he was
constrained and awkward. With a gesture of confusion and humility he took
her hand, and smiled upon her with all the goodness and tenderness of his
soul beaming from his face.

At this moment the Marquise, by a new reaction of her nervous system,
broke into weeping and sobbing; and this completed the General's despair.

Out of respect to this worthy man, we shall pass over a scene the
interest of which otherwise is not su