, her real or feigned love for Daniel broke forth more
freely, and no longer was veiled and hidden under timid reserve and
long-winded paraphrases. She gave herself up, whether her prudence had
forsaken her, or whether she felt quite sure that her letters could
never reach Count Ville-Handry. It sounded like an intense, irresistible
passion, escaping from the control of the owner, and breaking forth
terribly, like a long smouldering fire. Of Henrietta she said but
little,--enough, however, to terrify Daniel, if he had not known the
truth.

"That unfortunate, wayward girl," she wrote, "has just caused her aged
father such cruel and unexpected grief, that he was on the brink of
the grave. Weary of the control which her indiscretions rendered
indispensable, she has fled, we know not with whom; and all our efforts
to find her have so far been unsuccessful."

On the other hand, M. de Brevan wrote, "Deaf to my counsel and prayers
even, Miss Ville-Handry has carried out the project of leaving her
paternal home. Suspected of having favored her escape, I have been
called out by Sir Thorn, and had to fight a duel with him. A paper which
I enclose will give you the details of our meeting, and tell you that I
was lucky enough to wound that gentleman of little honor, but of great
skill with the pistol.

"Alas! my poor, excellent Daniel, why should I be compelled by the
duties of friendship to confess to you that it was not for the purpose
of remaining faithful to you, that Miss Henrietta was so anxious to be
free? Do not desire to return, my poor friend! You would suffer too much
in finding her whom you have loved so dearly unworthy of an honest
man, unworthy of you. Believe me, I did all I could to prevent her
irregularities, which now have become public. I only drew her hatred
upon me, and I should not be surprised if she did all she could to make
us all cut our throats."

This impudence was bold enough to confound anybody's mind, and to make
one doubt one's own good sense. Still he found the newspaper, which
had been sent to him with the letter, and in it the account of the duel
between M. de Brevan and M. Thomas Elgin. What did that signify? He once
more read over, more attentively than at first, the letters of Maxime
and the Countess Sarah; and, by comparing them with each other, he
thought he noticed in them some traces of a beginning disagreement.

"It may be that there is discord among my enemies," he said to himself,