Thus argued hope; but on the other side fear, though in fewer words, spoke with a more powerful voice. "The priest had asserted that the report had undoubtedly arrived. Would he venture to do so, after the solemn adjuration she addressed to him, if he were not himself convinced that what he said was true? Then, too, the pains he had taken to prepare her mind for the tidings, showed care and consideration for her; and, if the language he had used in so doing, were but the preface to a falsehood, it must be blasphemous trifling indeed. She suffered memory to run back over all the events lately passed; she considered his conduct, she asked herself if he had ever been guilty of deliberate falsehood? The answer was, no. He had suffered others to do so; but he had not done it himself. Without telling the exact truth, he had not uttered actual untruth. With that species of art, which has acquired the name of a body of men famous for employing it in all their dealings, he had made truth serve the purposes of falsehood; and, by a jesuitical juggle, had countenanced things that he knew to be untrue, without leaving those he deceived any means of convicting him of a lie. But now he had boldly and straightforwardly said, that the intelligence had certainly arrived. There was no evading that, she thought; it must either be true or false. She recollected, too, the fierce anger which De Montigni had displayed when first made prisoner by Nemours, and the words and glances which had passed between them in regard to herself. Might not such a scene, she inquired, have been renewed, when her lover found that she had been actually sent back without even being permitted another interview with him? Might he not have used such language as would compel a prince of fiery courage like Nemours to wave the privileges of his rank, and meet him as had been reported. Nemours was known to be daring, chivalrous, and of a character to carry the point of honour to excess; and if they met, was not the result reported to her, likely to take place." Thus argued fear; and between his voice and that of hope, her mind was left in that painful uncertainty, which is more wearing and agitating to the human frame, than even grief itself. She was still busy with these thoughts, when the door opened and the maid looked in; but Rose waved her hand impatiently, exclaiming, "leave me, leave me, I do not want you. You can go to bed." The very sight of Blanchette, however, brought back to her mind all the arts that had been practised upon her before, and made her once more hope that this sad intelligence might be part of a similar plan. "I will retire to bed;" she thought, "in the darkness and stillness of the night, I can think over these things more quietly than now. The sight of that girl is hateful to me. I will shut her out," but when she looked round, she found that the lock of the door between her room and the ante-chamber, had been removed.