“Cagliostro received the visit with the greatest _sang froid_, and, without the slightest resistance, allowed the officer to prosecute his search among the various tools and utensils which he employed in his calling. The large jug from which he had taken the liquid contained in the phial which he had given to me, still stood in the same place as on the preceding day. There remained but a few drops, for his patients had been numerous, but these the officer poured into a bottle and conveyed to the nearest chemist, who laughed in the man’s face, and pronounced them to be clear water. To my bitter reproaches and angry exclamations, Cagliostro replied, with perfect calmness, that the liquid was pure and innocent when he placed it in my hands, and that if it had grown pernicious it must have been owing to the guilty passions or to the evil sympathies of those who had used it. No further explanation could be elicited, and the affair, which made a great noise at the time, remains a mystery to this hour. As for me, I lost an amiable and valued friend, for the Marquise de Br**, either through fear of the ridicule which attached to the adventure, or from memory of the pain which she had suffered, could never endure me to approach her after that. She would not even grant me an interview in order to express my regrets at the strange accident which had happened. She avoided me when by chance we met in public, scarcely even returning my salutation but by a cold and formal acknowledgment. She refused all the efforts of our mutual friends at effecting a reconciliation, and, wearied with my importunities (for I really felt anxious to do away the unjust impression), she ended by returning my letters of apologies and supplications unopened.” The prince paused thoughtfully. The story was at an end. “Did there remain a scar or trace of the wound which the marquise had incurred?” said Madame de V——. “She carried the mark of that night’s adventure to her grave,” replied the prince; “a long, narrow scar, which all the art of the coiffeur could not disguise. The corner of one her exquisitely traced eyebrows, too, had been torn off, and never grew again; but she replaced it with great effect by an _assassin_, which she wore there ever after.” The prince paused again for a moment, and then added, while a smile full of malicious glee, of exquisite _finesse_, passed across his countenance, “The _girandole_ eardrops of emerald and topaz she not only wore no more, but had the cruelty to bestow upon her maid, who adorned herself with them at the next Opera ball, whither she was sent by her mistress to _intriguer_ me, while the lovely marquise replaced them at times with long pendants of snowy pearl, emblem of innocence and simplicity, and I soon began to observe, with bitterness, that, on these occasions, whether I proposed Opera, ball, or play, Boufflers always had some ‘particular engagement’ which prevented him from joining our party.”