Yours for ever. "'L.'" * * * * * Mariette had listened to the letter with such profound astonishment that she had been unable to utter a word. "That, Mariette, is what I wrote," remarked Louis. "What was there in my letter to make you so wretched?" "Is that really what was in the letter, M. Louis?" asked Madame Lacombe. "See for yourself, madame," said Louis, handing her the scraps of paper. "Do you suppose I know how to read?" was the surly response. "How was it that the letter was read so differently to Mariette, then?" "Who read my letter to you, Mariette?" asked Louis. "A scrivener." "A scrivener!" repeated Louis, assailed by a sudden suspicion. "Explain, Mariette, I beg of you." "The explanation is very simple, M. Louis. I asked a scrivener on the Charnier des Innocents to write a letter to you. He wrote it, and just as he was about to put your address on it he overturned his inkstand on the letter, and was obliged to write it all over again. On my return home, I found your letter waiting for me; but having no one to read it to me in Augustine's absence, I went back to the scrivener, a very kind and respectable old man, and asked him to read what you had written to me. He read it, or at least pretended to read it, for, according to him, you said that we must never meet again, that your future and that of your father demanded it, and for that reason you entreated me--" But the poor girl's emotion overcame her, and she burst into tears. Louis understood now that chance had led Mariette to his father for assistance, that the pretended accident had been merely a stratagem that enabled the scrivener to write a second letter of an entirely different import from the first, and to address it, not to Dreux, but to Paris, so Louis would find it on his arrival in that city. He understood, too, his father's object in thus deceiving Mariette in regard to the real contents of the second letter, when she again applied to him. The discovery of this breach of confidence on the part of his father--the reason of which was only too apparent--overwhelmed Louis with sorrow and shame. He dared not confess to his sweetheart the relation that existed between him and the scrivener, but, wishing to give the two women some plausible explanation of the deception that had been practised upon them, he said: "In spite of this scrivener's apparent kindness of heart, he must have taken a malicious pleasure in playing a joke upon you, my poor Mariette, for he read you the exact opposite of what I had written." "How shameful!" cried the girl. "How could he have had the heart to deceive me so? He had such a benevolent air, and spoke so feelingly of the sympathy he always felt for those unfortunate persons who, like myself, could neither read nor write."