eoccupied than ever about the relations which she
suspected to exist between M. de Camors and Madame de Campvallon. These
relations could not but prove fatal to the hopes she had so long founded
on the widowhood of the Marquise and the heritage of the General. The
marriage of M. de Camors had for the moment deceived her, but she was one
of those pious persons who always think evil, and whose suspicions are
soon reawakened. She tried to obtain from Vautrot, who had so long been
intimate with her nephew, some explanation of the mystery; but as Vautrot
was too prudent to enlighten her, she turned him out of doors.

After his encounter with M. de Camors, he immediately turned his steps
toward the Rue St. Dominique, and an hour later Madame de la Roche-Jugan
had the pleasure of knowing all that he knew of the liaison between the
Count and the Marquise. But we remember that he knew everything. These
revelations, though not unexpected, terrified Madame de la Roche-Jugan,
who saw her maternal projects destroyed forever. To her bitter feeling at
this deception was immediately joined, in this base soul, a sudden thirst
for revenge. It was true she had been badly recompensed for her anonymous
letter, by which she had previously attempted to open the eyes of the
unfortunate General; for from that moment the General, the Marquise, and
M. de Camors himself, without an open rupture, let her feel their marks
of contempt, which embittered her heart. She never would again expose
herself to a similar slight of this kind; but she must assuredly, in the
cause of good morals, at once confront the blind with the culpable, and
this time with such proofs as would make the blow irresistible. By the
mere thought, Madame de la Roche-Jugan had persuaded herself that the new
turn events were taking might become favorable to the expectations which
had become the fixed idea of her life.

Madame de Campvallon destroyed, M. de Camors set aside, the General would
be alone in the world; and it was natural to suppose he would turn to his
young relative Sigismund, if only to recognize the far-sighted affection
and wounded heart of Madame de la Roche-Jugan.

The General, in fact, had by his marriage contract settled all his
property on his wife; but Madame de la Roche-Jugan, who had consulted a
lawyer on this question, knew that he had the power of alienating his
fortune during life, and of stripping his unworthy wife and transferring
it to Sigismund.

Ma