He came like the fine, strong gentleman he was, across the garden, taking the note from her and tearing it open. He began straightway to read, my lady on tip-toe behind him reading over his shoulder, and holding her contaminated hands away from his coat. His face grew puzzled at the first, then as he seemed to finish, he stood a pace apart from my lady and read again. There was murder in his face--yet so white and quiet. He threw down the note and ground it into the soft earth beneath his heel. Then he caught my lady firmly by both her shoulders and held her fast, at full arm's length, gazing steadily into her face. "God in heaven," as Jacques said to me; "Master, what eyes has that Chevalier de la Mora! No man could lie to him with those eyes reading what a fellow thought." Jacques could not make himself to leave; he stood rigid and watched. "Well, Madame?" "She tried to laugh, but her husband's face forbade that this could be a spark of lover's play. "Well, Madame?" "Why, Charles, what is the matter with you, you behave so strangely?" The Chevalier had grown an older man, his face stern and resolute, eyes a-glitter, and mouth drawn in tense, determined lines. A most dangerous man. "Why, Charles, what is the matter?" "When did you meet him at Sceaux? What did you do?" "Meet who?" "Don't lie to me, woman, I am in no mood for subterfuge." She besought him with one frightened look, one step forward to him as if for protection, which he repelled; then she looked as though she might weep. "Neither do you weep. Tell me how many notes like this have you received?" "Like what? I could not read it, you held it so high," she sobbed. The Chevalier stooped down, picked up the crumpled paper from the earth, and smoothed it out. He then handed it to her, and regarded her face intently as she read it. "Read this, Madame, and see how careless you have been." And my lady read the note; she, too, read it again, the first reading not sufficing her to understand. Then she looked at her husband with great wide-open eyes; she was now calm, and as quiet as he. "Truly, Charles, I know nothing of this." "It was always said, Madame, at Sceaux, you could take the stage and play the parts of distressed and virtuous damosels," he answered her, coldly curling his lip. "Tell me, Madame, as you value your soul, what is this Captain de Mouret to you?" "As I value my soul," my lady answered him direct and steadily, looking straight into his eye, her own hands folded across her heaving breast. "As I value my soul, Charles, I know nothing of him." "What does he mean when he says here 'I was hasty and too impulsive when we parted in the chapel at Sceaux'?" "Upon my honor, Charles, I do not know. I never saw the man in all my life--to know him." "Upon your _honor_," the Chevalier repeated.