In a minute or two afterwards, Suzette went away, and the Duchess asked Lise whether she thought the riband would look well on the mantle. Just while they were speaking, in came my lord, and Lise went on into the bed-room beyond; but, in a moment after, she heard a word or two about the riband, and my lord gave my lady some hard names which she would not repeat. Hearing some one fall, she ran in, she said, to see, and found the Duchess as I have told you she was when I came there. Ever since that time, my lord has been like one distracted; and though he saw his wife yesterday, he spoke not a word to her, but all the time he was in the room, he continued playing with the curls of Mademoiselle's hair, and thinking of something else." Although I saw more deeply into the mystery than good old Jerome Laborde, and felt afraid, indeed, that he himself might unintentionally have contributed to bring about the change that we both deplored, yet there were many points of the whole business still dark and obscure even to myself. That the discovery of a riband in the hands of his wife, of the same colour, and probably the same shade, as that which suspended the locket to the neck of the unfortunate Count de Mesnil, had revived in the mind of Monsieur de Villardin, with more tremendous force than ever, those suspicions which the exhortations of Father Ferdinand and mv own direct testimony to the Duchess's conduct had crushed with difficulty, I did not in the least doubt. Nor had I more hesitation in concluding that Gaspard's hatred of myself, and desire to supplant me in the confidence of Monsieur de Villardin, together with the offence which the Duchess's rebuke in regard to the page had given Suzette, were sufficient motives for the lovers, or paramours, or whatever they might be, to combine in fostering the suspicions of Monsieur de Villardin against his wife, and thus revenging themselves upon her while they rendered themselves agreeable to him. But how they came by the knowledge necessary to make such schemes effectual was, I confess, a wonder to me. Could Monsieur de Villardin, I asked myself, could he have been weak enough to confide in Gaspard de Belleville the secret of his encounter with the Count de Mesnil, and the discovery of the locket and its contents? or could either Gaspard or Suzette have watched our proceedings on that occasion, or have overheard any of the conversations relating to it which had taken place between myself and the Duke? The first supposition I rejected at once, for it was impossible to believe that Monsieur de Villardin would trust to the ear of one, whom he himself suspected of having betrayed his confidence in former instances, a secret which, from the concealment and privacy that had attended the duel, might, in all probability, involve his own life. Neither could I, in calling to mind with the most scrupulous accuracy every circumstance relating to the transaction, believe that we had either