as a marble statue; and when she reappeared in the drawing-room, after
taking leave of Norbert, her face wore so satisfied an expression, that
the Viscount complimented her upon her apparent happiness.

She made some jesting retort, but there was a shade of earnestness mixed
with her playfulness, for to her future husband she only wished to show
the amiable side of her character; but all the time she was thinking.
Will Norbert see Daumon in time?

The Duke kept his word, and the next day the faithful Jean discreetly
handed her a packet. She opened it and found that besides the two
letters of which the Counsellor had spoken, it contained all her
correspondence with Norbert--more than a hundred letters in all, some
of great length, and all of them compromising to a certain extent. Her
first thought was to destroy them, but on reflection she decided not
to do so, and hid the packet in the same place as she had concealed the
letters written by Norbert to her.

Norbert had given Daumon sixty thousand francs, and in addition owed him
twenty thousand on his promissory notes. This sum, in addition to what
he had already saved, would form such a snug little fortune that it
would enable the Counsellor to quit Bevron, and take up his abode in
Paris, where his peculiar talents would have more scope for development.
And eight days later the village was thrown into a state of intense
excitement by the fact becoming known that Daumon had shut up his house
and departed for Paris, taking Francoise, the Widow Rouleau's daughter,
with him. The Widow Rouleau was furious, and openly accused Mademoiselle
de Laurebourg of having aided in the committal of the act which had
deprived her of her daughter's services in her declining years; and the
old woman who had acted as housekeeper, who on Daumon's departure had
thrown open the place, did not hesitate to assert that all her late
master's legal lore had been acquired in prison, where he had undergone
a sentence of ten years' penal servitude.

In spite of all this, however, Mademoiselle de Laurebourg was secretly
delighted at the departure of Daumon and Francoise; for she experienced
an intense feeling of relief at knowing that she no longer was in any
risk of meeting her accomplice in her daily walks. Norbert, too, was
going to Paris with his wife; and M. de Puymandour was going about
saying that his daughter, the Duchess of Champdoce, would not return to
this part of the country for some ti