A most amazing thing has just happened! I had given my letter to Corentine and was getting a breath of fresh air at the window and trying to read the secret of my fate in the gloomy front of the building opposite, when at the next window to mine I caught sight of Huchenard, airing himself too, quite close to me. Huchenard, my rival--Astier-Réhu’s worst enemy, installed in his study! We were, both equally amazed, bowed, and withdrew at the same moment. But there he is, I can hear him, I feel that he is on the other side of the partition. No doubt, like me, he is waiting to hear the decision of the Académie, only he has all the space of ‘Villemain’s reception-room,’ while I am suffocating in this hole crammed full of papers! Now I understand the confusion caused by my arrival. But what is it all about? What is going on? My dear Germaine, my head is going! Which of us is the fool? Lost! And by treachery, by some mean Academic intrigue which I do not yet understand! FIRST COUNTING. Baron Huchenard.......... 17 votes. Dalzon................... 15 ” Vicomte de Freydet....... 5 ” Moser......................1 vote. SECOND COUNTING. Baron Huchenard.......... 19 votes. Dalzon................... 15 ” Vicomte de Freydet....... 3 ” Moser.................... 1 vote. THIRD COUNTING. Baron Huchenard.......... 33 votes. Dalzon................... 4 ” Vicomte de Freydet....... 0 “(!!) Moser................... . 1 vote. It is clear that between the second and third taking of votes the copy of ‘Without the Veil’ must have been sent round in the interest of Baron Huchenard. An explanation I must and will have. I won’t leave the place till I get it. _4 P.M._ Dearest sister, you may guess my feelings when, after I had heard in the next room M. and Madame Astier, old Réhu, and a stream of visitors congratulating the author of ‘Cave Man,’ the door of the library opened and my old master came in, reaching out his hands and saying, ‘My dear boy, forgive me’--between heat and emotion he was nearly speechless--‘forgive me, that man had a hold over me. I had to do it, I had to do it. I thought I could avert the disaster which threatens me, but destiny is not to be escaped, no, not even by a base act--’ He held out his arms and I embraced him without the least anger, without indeed quite understanding the mystery of this bitter grief.