paid to Henrietta, he had not
concealed from her the fact that Maxime de Brevan had formerly been
quite intimate with Sarah Brandon and her friends. But still, in
explaining his reasons for trying to renew these relations, M. de Brevan
had acted with his usual diplomacy.

But for this, she might have conceived some vague suspicions when she
saw him, soon after he had left her, enter into a long conversation
with the countess, then speak with Sir Thorn, and finally chat most
confidentially with austere Mrs. Brian. But now, if she noticed it all,
she was not surprised. Her mind was, in fact, thousands of miles away.
She thought only of that letter which she had in her pocket, and which
was burning her fingers, so to say. She could think of nothing else.

What would she not have given for the right to run away and read it at
once? But adversity was teaching her gradually circumspection; and she
felt it would be unwise to leave the room before the last guests had
departed. Thus it was past two o'clock in the morning before she could
open the precious letter, after having dismissed her faithful Clarissa.

Alas! she did not find what she had hoped for,--advice, or, better than
that, directions how she should conduct herself. The fact is, that
in his terrible distress, Daniel no longer was sufficiently master of
himself to look calmly at the future, and to weigh the probabilities. In
his despair he had filled three pages with assurances of his love, with
promises that his last thoughts would be for her, and with prayers
that she would not forget him. There were hardly twenty lines left for
recommendations, which ought to have contained the most precise and
minute details.

All his suggestions, moreover, amounted to this,--arm yourself with
patience and resignation till my return. Do not leave your father's
house unless in the last extremity, in case of pressing danger, and
under no circumstances without first consulting Maxime.

And to fill up the measure, from excessive delicacy, and fearing to
wound his friend's oversensitive feelings, Daniel had omitted to inform
Henrietta of certain most important circumstances. Thus he only told
her, that, if flight became her only means of escape from actual
danger, she need not hesitate from pecuniary considerations; that he had
foreseen every thing, and made the needful preparations.

How could she guess from this, that the unlucky man, carried away and
blinded by passion, had i