How impossible is it to express the consternation our lovers now were in: they found by the repetition monsieur de Coigney made of the words she spoke, that what they had so long and so successfully laboured to conceal, was now betrayed:--betrayed to one who would not fail to make the most malicious use of the discovery, and doubted not but the affair would become the general talk, perhaps to the prejudice of Charlotta's reputation; but the least thing either could expect, was to be separated for ever. Horatio, full of disturbed emotions, conducted his disconsolate mistress to the gate of the Tuilleries, and there took a farewel of her, which he had too much reason to fear would be his last, at least for a long time. He was tempted by his first emotions to seek de Coigney, and call him to account for the affront he had put upon him, and either lose his own life, or oblige the other to secrecy; but then he considered, that there was some probability he would not dare to own that he had given himself any concern about mademoiselle Charlotta, after the injunction laid on him by his father, much less as he had attempted a duel in her cause, having, as has been already mentioned, been before guilty of a like offence against the laws, which in that country are very strict, on account of madame de Olonne; and this prevailed with him to be passive as to what had happened, till he should hear how the other would behave, and find what turn the affair would take. Charlotta in the mean time was in the most terrible anxieties:--she could not imagine what had brought monsieur de Coigney, who she thought had been many miles distant, so suddenly to Paris: but on making some private enquiry, she was informed, that having met some difficulty in the execution of his office, he had taken post, in order to lay his complaints before the king, and had arrived that very day.--She now blamed her own inadvertency in holding any discourse with Horatio, of a nature not proper to be over-heard, in a place so public as the Tuilleries, where others, as well as he, might have possibly been witnesses of what was said.