Once her eyes caught mine and calmly held them fast, and in that moment, as a child may flash a blinding ray of sunlight from a mirror into your face, there flashed into my mind these words: “Only a qualified admiration, eh? And you feel something, eh? You don’t know what? No! and you won’t know either, my dear!” and I ended the act with cheeks as hot from wounded feeling as though the words had actually been spoken to me. I was not in the second act, neither was the “young society woman,” or at least she was on the stage for about three minutes, after which she came, swelling visibly with importance, for in very truth she had something to reveal, and first exacting, on word of honor, promise not to tell (I only do it now, when: “In Paris suddenly----”). She quickly began: “You can see she is a lady, can’t you? Born in Boston--perfectly lovely family--old--very old, you know! Was splendidly educated, and the very day of her _début_ in society--I don’t know who brought her out, her mother was dead, you know--that very day her father killed himself! Ruined--no courage and all that--she had no near relatives! Went off alone--went abroad--worked at teaching or companioning or something! Things then went wrong--troubles came, awful troubles! Oh--oh!” The speaker’s eyes looked fairly scared, her hands trembled, she drew close to me, and holding fast a fold of my dress, she with desperate haste flung out these words: “She--that American woman--that lady sitting there--she has been accused of murder! Why, she has stood trial for her life!” I could only gaze at her in stupid silence, and after a moment she rambled on about her uncle being Madame de B----’s lawyer, and his having charge of her affairs over here, as she would not live here--would not settle anywhere in fact--just wandered from place to place, etc. As last I broke in, with a gasp: “Murderess! She a murderess? But why--how?” “Oh!” cried my informant: “She was innocent, of course, or I should not know her (I had not thought of that). But she had a narrow escape, and owed it to a man she had always hated; to the dead man’s valet.” Again, and more impatiently, I broke in: “But why--how--who?”