r excellency."

"What o'clock is it?" asked he, with great anxiety.

She answered, "A quarter after one."

"When did you leave your mistress?"

"At twelve. Madame bade me wait here for you."

"Lost!--dead! perhaps dead!" exclaimed the Count. He hurried down the
alley directly to the hotel.

"Signore! Signore!" said the woman; "all the servants have not perhaps
gone to bed, and if you be seen now in the garden of the Embassy, what
will people say and think of Madame?"

"Take me directly to her," said the Count, "for her life is in danger."

"Her life!" said the woman, with terror. Then, as if struck with an
idea, she added, "Wait, though, Madame bade me not come into her room
until to-morrow, unless I brought your excellency with me."

"Come, come," said the Count, dragging the woman after him. Thus they
went to the right wing of the building. A small door opened on a private
stairway communicating with the rooms of the Duchess of Palma. The
servant pointed out the door to the Count, and then preceded him. The
stairway ended at a little hall on the first floor. There the Count
stopped and the woman put a key in another door in the wall, through
which the Count entered a waiting-room and passed into a boudoir, where
the _femme de chambre_ asked him to sit for a few moments while she
informed the Duchess of his arrival. The Count was for some minutes
alone in the boudoir, and at last heard a half stifled cry behind him.
He looked around and saw the servant motionless and with terror
impressed on every feature. She pointed to the Duchess's room with one
hand, and lifted up the curtain of the door with the other. The Count
entered the room where a terrible spectacle awaited him. The Duchess,
pale as death, was extended on a sofa; by her side was a lamp almost
burnt out, and the flickering light cast from time to time a pale lustre
over this scene of sadness and death. The pulse and heart of La Felina
were motionless. By her side was a flacon of red liquor, which was
spilled on the rosewood stand. The Count held the flacon to his nose and
lip, and recognized its contents to be laudanum, that bringer of calm or
ruin, of sleep or death.

A feeling of deep sorrow took possession of him. The love and devotion
of that woman appeared to him in their proper light--limitless and vast.
Remorse lacerated his heart; for he charged himself with being the cause
of the terrible crime she had committed. Again the Count approached