As he spoke, Benvenuto pressed the spring, opened the stalk, and took out the letter. He slowly unfolded it, and showed it, open, to the duchess, pale with wrath, and stricken dumb with dismay. "You hardly expected this, did you, madame?" said Benvenuto, coolly, folding the letter once more, and replacing it in the lily. "If you knew my ways, madame, you would be less surprised. A year ago I concealed a ladder in a statuette; a month ago I concealed a maiden in a statue. What was there that I could hide away in a flower to-day? A bit of paper, that was all, and that is what I have done." "But that letter," cried the duchess, "that infernal letter I burned with my own hands: I saw the flame and touched the ashes!" "Did you read the letter you burned?" "No! no! madwoman that I was, I did not read it!" "That is too bad, for you would be convinced now that the letter of a grisette will make as much flame and ashes as the letter of a duchess." "Why, then, Ascanio, the dastard, deceived me!" "Oh madame! pray pause! Do not suspect that pure and innocent child, who, even if he had deceived you, would have done no more than turn against you the weapons you used against him. Oh no, no! he did not deceive you; he would not purchase his own life or Colombe's by deceit! No, he was himself deceived." "By whom? Pray tell me that." "By a mere boy, a student, the same who wounded your trusty retainer, Vicomte de Marmagne; by one Jacques Aubry, in short, whom it is likely that the Vicomte de Marmagne has mentioned to you." "Yes," murmured the duchess, "yes, Marmagne did tell me that this student, this Jacques Aubry, was seeking to gain access to Ascanio in order to secure that letter." "And it was after that you paid Ascanio a visit. But students are active, you know, and ours had already anticipated you. As you left the Hôtel d'Etampes, he was creeping into his friend's cell, and as you entered it, he went out." "But I didn't see him; I saw nobody." "One doesn't think to look everywhere; if you had done so, you would, in due course, have raised a certain mat, and under that mat would have found a hole communicating with the adjoining cell." "But Ascanio, Ascanio?" "When you entered he was asleep, was he not?" "Yes." "Very good! during his sleep, Aubry, to whom he had refused to give the letter, took it from his coat pocket, and put a letter of his own in its place. You were misled by the envelope, and thought that you were burning a note from Madame la Duchesse d'Etampes. Not so, madame; you burned an epistle penned by Mademoiselle Gervaise-Perrette Popinot." "But this Aubry, who wounded Marmagne, this clown, who almost murdered a nobleman, will pay dear for his insolence; he is in prison and condemned to death." "He is free, madame, and owes his freedom in great measure to you." "How so?" "Why, who but he was the poor prisoner whose pardon you joined me in urging upon King François?"