ed Pietrapertosa,
making with his fingers the sign which conjures the jettutura. For
nothing in the world would he have named the personages against whose
evil eye he provided in that manner. But Cibo understood him, and,
drawing from his trousers pocket his watch, which he fastened a
l'anglaise by a safety chain to his belt, he pointed out among the charms
a golden horn:

"I have not let it go this evening," said he. "The worst is, that Gorka
will not sleep, and then, his hand!"

Only the first of those two prognostics was to be verified. Returning
home at that late hour, Boleslas did not even retire. He employed the
remainder of the night in writing a long letter to his wife, one to his
son, to be given to him on his eighteenth birthday, all in case of an
accident. Then he examined his papers and he came upon the package of
letters he had received from Madame Steno. Merely to reread a few of
them, and to glance at the portraits of that faithless mistress again,
heightened his anger to such a degree that he enclosed the whole in a
large envelope, which he addressed to Lincoln Maitland. He had no sooner
sealed it than he shrugged his shoulders, saying: "Of what use?" He
raised the piece of material which stopped up the chimney, and, placing
the envelope on the fire-dogs, he set it on fire. He shook with the tongs
the remains of that which had been the most ardent, the most complete
passion of his life, and he relighted the flames under the pieces of
paper still intact. The unreasonable employment of a night which might be
his last had scarcely paled his face. But his friends, who knew him well,
started on seeing him with that impassively sinister countenance when he
alighted from his phaeton, at about eight o'clock, at the inn selected
for the meeting. He had ordered the carriage the day before to allay his
wife's suspicions by the pretense of taking one of his usual morning
drives. In his mental confusion he had forgotten to give a counter order,
and that accident caused him to escape the two policemen charged by the
questorship to watch the Palazzetto Doria, on Lydia Maitland's
denunciation. The hired victoria, which those agents took, soon lost
track of the swift English horses, driven as a man of his character and
of his mental condition could drive.

The precaution of Chapron's sister was, therefore, baffled in that
direction, and she succeeded no better with regard to her brother, who,
to avoid all explanation