"Yes; and her heart will not suffer her to be convinced as easily as you have been of the baseness of a man whose name and hand she was about to receive. To break the bonds which unite them, to change her love into contempt, the Marquise de Manlear will require evidence beyond dispute of a crime of which, as yet, you have only suspicions, and which my respect for Monte-Leone forces me to repudiate." As she spoke, the Duchess, who sat on the ottoman yet, reached forth her arm to pick up a paper which lay on the carpet. Taddeo, following her motions, picked up the paper and handed it to her. "What is that?" said she; "some letter I have dropped or which one of my visitors has lost." "Count Monte-Leone sat there," and she pointed to a particular chair. She opened it mechanically, but scarcely had she done so than she uttered a cry of grief. Taddeo hurried to La Felina with a bottle of salts. She had let the paper fall, and it met his glance as it lay open. He saw a seal. Moved by a feeling of curiosity, which he could not repress, and hoping to discover the cause of La Felina's emotion, made confident also by the authentic character of the paper, Taddeo took and read it carefully. Scarcely had he done so than his strength gave way and he became pale as death. Sinking back in a chair he was crushed, as it were, by terror. The Duchess had recovered, and their countenances exhibited to each other the terrible feelings which filled their minds. "Did you read?" said La Felina. "I did," said Rovero. "Here it is." "I recognize as an _attaché_ of the Police Count Monte-Leone, who acts by my authority." "This is awful," said she. "Do you yet doubt?" said Taddeo, quivering with grief. "What will you do with that paper?" said La Felina, also trembling. "What people do with a decree which holds a man to public infamy--fasten it to the scaffold, that all may know who is the wretch society expels from its bosom. I will nail it to his brow." "No, no! you will not do so; you will not be hard-hearted and cruel enough to act thus." "I will do my duty," said Taddeo, sternly. "And I," said Signora de la Palma, taking possession of the paper, "will not suffer you to do so." Then, quicker than thought, she crushed the paper in her hands, and threw it in the fire. "What have you done?" said Taddeo. "You have destroyed the irrefragable proof of his guilt." "You read it, that is enough _for you_--it is too much for _him_." Then rushing from the room where she was alone, she said aloud--"It is enough, too, for me, for now _she will never marry him_." VI.--THE ACCUSATION. What had occurred was a sufficient reason for the Duchess not to return to the room. Taddeo hurried to Von Apsberg's. D'Harcourt and the Doctor did not come until two o'clock. The door they watched did not open, and he they were so anxiously waiting for prudently left by some other egress. "Well," said the Doctor to Taddeo, "was he at the Duchess's?--did he go out as his driver said?"