He was unfolding the fifteenth when he noticed a smaller envelope, that had been slipped into it. He took it out and read the direction: "For the Prince of Augsbourg." The envelope had not been sealed. He opened it mechanically, thinking that it had some connection with the correspondence. In it was a sheet of paper, again with the crest of the Frédets, on which he read with that swift look that takes in ten lines at a glance: _"This is my will, which annuls all preceding ones. I constitute as my sole legatee Monsieur Jules Frédet, Prince d'Augsbourg, under the express condition that he shall personally conduct my funeral, that he shall have my body as well as that of my husband deposited in the tomb of the Frédet family, and that I appear as donor of the letters to General Moreau in the forthcoming 'Mémoires' of the marshal. If Monsieur Jules Frédet does not accept this legacy, my will deposited at my notary's shall be valid in place of this. Given under my hand"_--here followed a date and beneath it the signature: "_Duchesse d'Ivrea_." "Is the count correct?" This question, snapped out by the Prince through the open door from the end of the other room where he had gone to dress, startled the young man. Surely he was quite innocent of all design, and he had no sooner discovered the confidential nature of the paper than he replaced it in its envelope. Nevertheless he had discovered its contents, and it was with cheeks flaming like those of a guilty man that he replied: "I do not know yet, but I have just found this in the correspondence." He had on the tip of his tongue the avowal of his involuntary indiscretion, but false shame restrained him. "An envelope?" said the Prince. "Addressed to me? It must be some trick she has devised to get a letter to me. If it is a letter I shall tear it up without reading it. Let me see"--he had advanced to the door of the room and began reading aloud: "_This is my_--" [Illustration: Paul Bourget] He stopped short. He had turned terribly pale. Alfred saw that his hand clenched over the sheet as if to crush and tear it. Then, folding the paper, he returned it to its envelope and placed it on the mantel under a book, as if it were of no importance. He came back to the door and looked at Alfred, who was already bent over his work, prudently avoiding this look. He seemed to have a question on his lips that he did not put into words. He had stopped while shaving to call out his question. Without saying anything more he finished shaving while Boyer continued to arrange the letters with hands trembling with emotion, and the same emotion shook his voice as he said, finally breaking the silence, when the work was done: "The thirty-seven letters are here."