The two other gentlemen took leave, and left the room with the count. The young lady remained alone. A flashing look followed them as they withdrew. "You wish to use me for your plans," she cried, "you seek to charm me with hopes of freedom and dominion, and you would prepare for me a gilded slavery? You forbid my heart to beat, because it cannot be so serviceable as your tool? Ah! you deceive yourself, Count Rivero! I need you, but I am not your servant, your slave! Well then, let war begin between us," she said, with determination; "not war to the death, but a war for rule; I will try to make your proud shoulders bear me up to power and independence. Independence!" said she, sighing, after a short silence, "how much I am short of it, yet let me go carefully and prudently onwards; first, I will see whether I cannot win back the unfaithful friend to whom my heart still clings, without the aid of my master." She threw herself on the sofa, and looked thoughtfully before her. "But, my God!" she cried, with anguish in her eyes, as she pressed her tender hand to her forehead, "I wish to win him back, and he is before the enemy, the great battle has been fought, perhaps he lies dead already upon the bloody field." And her eyes gazed into space as if she actually saw the horrible picture her fancy had painted. Then she leant back and a dark expression passed over her face. "And if it were so?" she said, gloomily, "perhaps it would be better for me, and I might then be free from the burning thorn I cannot tear from my heart. The count is right! such love is weakness, and I will not be weak! perhaps I should again be strong. But to know that he is living, to think that he belongs to me no longer, that he, in his beauty, is at the feet of another--" She sprang up, a wild glow kindled in her eyes, her breast heaved high, her beautiful features were distorted by the vehemence of her emotion. "Never, never!" she said, in a low, hissing voice. "If he were dead, I could forget him; but that picture will pursue me everywhere--will poison my life. Poison!" she repeated, and an evil flash passed across her face. "How easy it was in days gone by," she whispered, "to destroy an enemy! Now--" Again she stared blankly before her. "But is it needful to poison the body to conquer difficulties?" A wicked smile played around her beautiful mouth; her eyes flashed, and for a long time she sat thinking deeply. She rose and went to her rosewood writing-table. She took a packet of letters from one compartment and began to read them attentively. Several she threw back; at last she seemed to have found what she sought. It was a short note only, written on a single sheet. "He wrote me this during the man[oe]uvres," said she; "this will serve me." She read:-- "My sweet queen,