She rushed up the staircase once more, and after ringing the bell as loudly as before, she slipped under the door, as the porter had guessed, the bit of paper on which she had written: “Jacques, I want to save you. At least believe in the love you have betrayed. What more can I say? Open the door. I swear to you that B—— is at the corner of the street watching for you. If you look to the right you will see his carriage, and I swear to you, too, that I will save you.” What a note, and how I preserve it, having obtained it from Jacques himself, as a monument of harrowing tenderness! It is impossible for me to transcribe it without shedding tears. The sublime lover had calculated that sooner or later Jacques would have to come to the door to go out. She also told herself that she would stand against the staircase wall till, after reading her supplication, he opened the door. With what a beating heart she watched her white note immediately disappear! A hand drew it inside. She could hear the rustle of the paper as the hand unfolded it and the noise of a window opening. Jacques was looking into the street, as she had told him to do, to verify for himself, in spite of the increasing darkness, the accuracy of the information contained in the strange missive. To the poor Duchess, although she had indicated the method of verification, this proof of distrust at that moment was really like the probing of a wound, the most painful spot in a painful wound! She had no time to think of this fresh humiliation. The door opened at last and the two lovers were in the anteroom facing one another: Camille a prey to her exaltation of sacrifice and martyrdom so strangely mingled with contempt and almost hatred; he pale and haggard, and looking untidy from his hasty toilet. “Come,” he began in a low voice, “what is it? You know if you are lying, and have come to make a scene.” “Be quiet, wretch!” she replied without deigning to lower her voice; “if I were a woman to make scenes, should I have neglected the opportunity when you came here with her last Tuesday at three o’clock? Yes, I was in that room, there behind the alcove, and I heard everything; do you understand? everything, I did not come out and I let you go. There is no question of that. The husband of that woman is at the corner of the street watching for you. You looked out of the window and saw the carriage. I don’t want him to kill you in spite of what you have done to me. I love you too well. That is the reason I am here.”