If Monsieur le Vidame or I could have gone to see you we would not
have written. But I make no doubt that you will regard this prayer
of a mother, who begs you to destroy this letter.
Accept the assurance of my perfect consideration.
Baronne de Maulincour, _nee_ de Rieux.
"Oh! what torture!" cried Jules.
"What is it? what is in your mind?" asked his wife, exhibiting the
deepest anxiety.
"I have come," he answered, slowly, as he threw her the letter, "to
ask myself whether it can be you who have sent me that to avert my
suspicions. Judge, therefore, what I suffer."
"Unhappy man!" said Madame Jules, letting fall the paper. "I pity him;
though he has done me great harm."
"Are you aware that he has spoken to me?"
"Oh! have you been to see him, in spite of your promise?" she cried in
terror.
"Clemence, our love is in danger of perishing; we stand outside of the
ordinary rules of life; let us lay aside all petty considerations in
presence of this great peril. Explain to me why you went out this
morning. Women think they have the right to tell us little falsehoods.
Sometimes they like to hide a pleasure they are preparing for us. Just
now you said a word to me, by mistake, no doubt, a no for a yes."
He went into the dressing-room and brought out the bonnet.
"See," he said, "your bonnet has betrayed you; these spots are
raindrops. You must, therefore, have gone out in a street cab, and
these drops fell upon it as you went to find one, or as you entered or
left the house where you went.
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