d how do you propose to act?"

"M. Charles Robert is so perfectly unable to comprehend the delicacy of
feeling which this evening dictated the marquise's resolution of meeting
him, that he is safe to rush with vulgar eagerness to the rendezvous,
and this will effectually ruin his plans, for pity alone has instigated
Clemence to take this compromising step. No love,--no infatuation has
hurried her into a measure so fatal to her future resolution. I know
every turn of her mind; and I am confident she will keep her appointment
solely from a courageous idea of generous devotion, but with a firm
resolve not for one instant to forget her duties as a wife and mother.
Now the coarse, vulgar mind of M. Charles Robert is sure to take the
fullest advantage of the marquise's concession in his favour. Clemence
will detest him from that instant; and the illusion once destroyed which
has bound herself and Charles Robert in bonds of imaginary sympathy, she
will fall again beneath the influence of her love for Rodolph, which I
am certain still nestles in her heart."

"Well?"

"Well! I would have her for ever lost to Rodolph, whose high sense of
honour and deep friendship for M. d'Harville I feel perfectly sure would
not have proved equal to preventing his returning the love of Clemence;
but I will so manage things that he shall henceforward look upon her
with loathing and disgust, as the guilty partner in a crime committed
without his participation. No, no! I know my man. He might pardon the
offence, but never the being excluded from his share in it."

"Then do you propose apprising the husband of all that is going on, so
that the prince should learn the disgraceful circumstances from the
publicity the affair would obtain?"

"I do. And the thing is so much the easier to accomplish as, from what
fell from Clemence to-night, I can learn that the marquis has vague and
undefined suspicions, without knowing on whom to fix them. It is now
midnight; we shall almost directly leave the ball, I will set you down
at the first cafe we meet with, whence you shall write M. d'Harville a
minute account of his wife's love affair, with the projected assignation
of to-morrow, with the time and place where it is arranged to take
place. Oh! but I forgot, I didn't state that the place of meeting is No.
17 Rue du Temple. And the time, to-morrow at one o'clock. The marquis is
already jealous of Clemence; well, he will by this information surprise
her unde