me, and warned me that my coming would be
indiscreet.'

"She seemed much disconcerted, and exclaimed--

"'I am lost! I see you guess everything, and will tell my husband. I am
an unhappy woman, and a sin once committed can never be erased from the
pages of a woman's life! Listen, Monsieur Derues, listen, I implore you!
You see this man, I shall not tell you who he is, I shall not give his
name . . . but I loved him long ago; I should have been his wife, and
had he not been compelled to leave France, I should have married no one
else.'"

Monsieur de Lamotte started, and grew pale.

"What is the matter?" the magistrate inquired.

"Oh! this dastardly wretch is profiting by his knowledge of secrets which
a long intimacy has enabled him to discover. Do not believe him, I
entreat you, do not believe him!"

Derues resumed. "Madame de Lamotte continued: 'I saw him again sixteen
years ago, always in hiding, always proscribed. To-day he reappears
under a name which is not his own: he wishes to link my fate with his; he
has insisted on seeing Edouard. But I shall escape him. I have invented
this fiction of placing my son among the, royal pages to account for my
stay here. Do not contradict me, but help me; for a little time ago I
met one of Monsieur de Lamotte's friends, I am afraid he suspected
something. Say you have seen me several times; as you have come, let it
be known that you brought Edouard here. I shall return to Buisson as
soon as possible, but will you go first, see my husband, satisfy him if
he is anxious? I am in your hands; my honour, my reputation, my very
life, are at your mercy; you can either ruin or help to save me. I may
be guilty, but I am not corrupt. I have wept for my sin day after day,
and I have already cruelly expiated it.'"

This execrable calumny was not related without frequent interruptions on
the part of Monsieur de Lamotte. He was, however, obliged to own to
himself that it was quite true that Marie Perier had really been promised
to a man whom an unlucky affair had driven into exile, and whom he had
supposed to be dead. This revelation, coming from Derues, who had the
strongest interest in lying, by no means convinced him of his wife's
dishonour, nor destroyed the feelings of a husband and father; but Derues
was not speaking for him lone, and what appeared incredible to Monsieur
de Lamotte might easily seem less improbable to the colder and less
interested judgment of th