With his heart rather than his eyes la Peyrade recognized the handwriting, and, turning over the missive, the arms and motto confirmed the hope that he had reached the end of the cruellest emotion he had ever in his life experienced. To read that letter before that odious porter seemed to him a profanation. With a refinement of feeling which all lovers will understand, he gave himself the pleasure of pausing before his happiness; he would not even unseal that blissful note until the moment when, with closed doors and no interruptions to distract him, he could enjoy at his ease the delicious sensation of which his heart had a foretaste. Rushing up the staircase two steps at a time, the now joyous lover committed the childish absurdity of locking himself in; then, having settled himself at his ease before his desk, and having broken the seal with religious care, he was forced to press his hand on his heart, which seemed to burst from his bosom, before he could summon calmness to read the following letter:-- Dear Monsieur,--I disappear forever, because my play is played out. I thank you for having made it both attractive and easy. By setting against you the Thuilliers and Collevilles (who are fully informed of your sentiments towards them), and by relating in a manner most mortifying to their bourgeois self-love the true reason of your sudden and pitiless rupture with them, I am proud and happy to believe that I have done you a signal service. The girl does not love you, and you love nothing but the eyes of her “dot”; I have therefore saved you both from a species of hell. But, in exchange for the bride you have so curtly rejected, another charming girl is proposed to you; she is richer and more beautiful than Mademoiselle Colleville, and--to speak of myself --more at liberty than Your unworthy servant, Torna “Comtesse de Godollo.” P.S. For further information apply, without delay, to Monsieur du Portail, householder, rue Honore-Chevalier, near the rue de la Cassette, quartier Saint-Sulpice, by whom you are expected. When he had read this letter the advocate of the poor took his head in his hands; he saw nothing, heard nothing, thought nothing; he was annihilated.