On the following morning the chevalier as agreed upon, wrote a penitential letter to madame, entreating her pardon for his improper attentions to her servant, whom she affected to dismiss with every mark of gravest displeasure. The weeping Abigail threw herself at the feet of her mistress: and the compassionate marquis (before whom the scene was enacted), touched with pity, implored his lady to receive the afflicted and penitent Javotte once more into her service. This was at length granted to his solicitations; and Javotte received a hundred louis as the price of her silence, and found it sufficient compensation for the bad opinion the marquis entertained of her virtue. The second trick the marchioness played her husband was not less amusing. The chevalier de Cressy and herself could not meet so frequently as both desired; and whilst suffering under the void occasioned by his absence, chance threw in her way a young relative of her husband's, a youth of about eighteen, as beautiful as Love, and as daring as that god. They were then in the country during the fine days of summer, and both time and place were favorable to the prosecution of their growing passion. One day madame de l'Hôpital and her cousin were sauntering about the park heedless of the approaching dinner-hour, and equally deaf to the sound of the dinner-bell, which rung its accustomed peal in vain for them whose ears were occupied in listening to sweeter sounds. At length the master of the house, alarmed at the protracted absence of his wife and friend, went himself, attended by many guests assembled at his house, in search of the stray ones; the servants likewise received orders to disperse themselves over the grounds in different directions; and madame de l'Hôpital and her companion were only aroused to a recollection of the flight of time by hearing their names loudly shouted by a dozen different voices. Fortunately they were just in time to separate in opposite paths, and thus to enter the castle without any suspicion being excited of their having been so recently in each other's company. The marquis angrily remonstrated with his lady for having obliged him to send in search of her, and she excused herself by protesting that she had not heard the dinner-bell. The marquis replied, that the thing was impossible; and after some angry discussion the matter rested there.