"I shall read it sooner or later. If you will tell me what is in it, I shall be the only one to pay any attention to its contents before the case comes up. Otherwise, it will lie about in lawyers' offices. I have come here as a peace-maker, not as a lawyer. I remember our friendly relations. And if circumstances condemn Albert unreservedly, I shall request him to select other counsel." "No," replied Elizabeth, touched. "You are his friend; it is right that you should defend him. You have already begun to do so. When you came in I was preparing to send you this letter. The lawyers have twice requested me to show it to them. Now I have no more secrets; my life is exposed to the public--it is all the same to me. I will go and get the letter for you." But it was the life of another that she was exposing. During her absence, Mme. Molay-Norrois confided to Philippe that she wished to take her daughter away to Uriage as soon as possible, since the mere prospect of the trial depressed her, and the children needed to be in the country. When he asked for the little girl and for his godson, her unfriendly expression changed, and her face was lit up by one of those kind grand-motherly smiles, which, as a result of much association with children, restored a little of her confident simplicity. "Here, read it quickly," said Elizabeth, handing him an envelope which her fingers scarcely held, as if they were in contact with a flaming torch. "He was asking for the children," explained her mother kindly--"Where are they?" "In my room. Will you go and get them, Mamma?" Philippe understood that no one else was to be present while he was reading the letter, and he was glad of this tête-à-tête with his former sweetheart. Anne de Sézery, Elizabeth Molay-Norrois, figures of his youth, which still continued to affect him through the life of Albert Derize! What had become of the young girl of Saint Ismier, so baffling in her strange changes of mood? As she had come in the morning, so now again she came to his memory--the narrow golden eyes, the mouth with its drooping corners, which wore an expression of expectancy and of weariness. But on this face time must have left its trace. He looked at the writing and recognized it, although it was stiffer, firmer, with sudden flourishes and unfinished letters. And without stopping, he read the eight pages of foreign paper which crackled under his fingers like dead leaves under the foot which crushes them. "PARIS, this Friday.