The well-bred gentlewoman had seized, without second thought, the letter lying open at her feet, read it, gasped over it, paled over it, hated and disbelieved it--crushed it in her hand, and, with the now crumpled sheet between glove and palm, she was on her way to verify its purport; to make sure of the fact which women, if they would but know it, are many times happier in ignoring; to prove to herself what? That her husband was unfaithful to her; that she must either “cease to love him”--by the operation of one of those unbalancing _coups de foudre_ which, we are told, turn honey to gall and love to hate in the human breast at one revolution--or that with the discovery she must also acknowledge, no matter _what_ he did, she would love him still, and would, therefore, curse an enlightenment which should only give her a useless bitter grief to suffer for the rest of her life. She stopped still at the Place de la Concorde. She never walked alone in the streets of Paris at this hour, and the aspect of the city was new to her. In the early winter twilight the Place shone through the mingled mists of evening, and the golden hazy scintillations haloing the yellow lamps. The sunset had left the sky over the Tuileries still red, and above the river the heavens darkened and grew cold, but the bridge lights beckoned. Her hands were in her muff, her cheeks red with exercise, and her eyes, which had wept more tears in the last few hours than they would acknowledge to have seen for many months, stung in the sharp air. She stood irresolute. Behind her the Champs Elysées stretched to the apex at the Arc. It would be a quiet, restful walk home. Should she not take it, return and force herself to learn the lesson--that it is folly to be too wise? As she clasped her hands together in her muff the letter crushed upon her palm; she set her lips, drew a sharp breath, and resumed her walk, turning across to the Pont de la Concorde, traversing it quickly, a graceful, agile pedestrian among the many foot passengers, unobserving of the admiring eyes of those whose chase is beauty. After a very long walk, Mrs. Evremond gained the boulevard she sought, turned into a dark little street, into a still darker alley. The old _concierge_ met her at the _loge_, a peasant _gardienne_, blear-eyed and wearing the white cap of her province. She blinked at madame, and under the thick lace veil Mrs. Evremond had worn to shield her emotion from the curious, the old woman did not recognize her tenant’s wife. “Monsieur told me that he is expecting madame,” she said, familiarly. “He will not be long. Madame will go in----” Without reply, she passed the woman and went up to her husband’s room. Expecting her? No, that she knew was not the case--he was expecting another; even the old _portière_ was in his wretched secret, while she alone, perhaps, of all Paris had been ignorant.