did no harm to our plans, for once having suffered his feelings to appear before me, he was less scrupulous afterwards in questioning me upon the subject. Gaspard was the agent by whom I was generally called to his presence, and while we left his suspicions against our lady in the same state as we found them, we endeavoured, as far as we could, to inculpate you, and to make him believe that you had been a confidant and a favourite of the Count de Mesnil. In this, however, we were always frustrated; and seeing that there were facts within his own knowledge which rendered our most artful insinuations in regard to you ineffectual, we were, of course, obliged to proceed carefully. "After our change of residence, however, and the fresh degree of favour you acquired at Dumont, we determined upon laying some new scheme for your destruction. Madame de Villardin, I thought, had been punished enough, and I began almost to be sorry that I had done as I had done; for I believe a woman is never altogether without compassion for the sorrows of a woman, unless she be jealous of her. I saw peace and a certain degree of happiness restored between the Duke and his wife after the arrival of Father Ferdinand, with more satisfaction than I had imagined I could have done a month before; but Gaspard felt differently, and was continually urging me to proceed with our former plans, and still endeavour to rouse the suspicions of the Duke against you in regard to the Count de Mesnil, asking whether I could not place some of the riband which had been attached to the locket in your apartments, and suggesting many another scheme of the kind. I resisted, however, till at length one unfortunate evening we were seen together, walking after dark in the park, with my arm clasped in his, and his arm round my waist. The next day, the Duchess again spoke to me in even more severe terms than before, and told me that I must prepare to leave her service at the expiration of a month. My resolution was now taken. I soothed, flattered, lamented, expressed my contrition, and promised a different conduct; but still she adhered to her determination, though, at the same time, she assured me that she would take care to place me well in Paris. Affecting to forget all her severity, I the next day engaged her in the examination of her wardrobe, and taking care to fix her attention particularly on that fatal blue riband, which had been curtailed by my hands in order to attach a part of it to the locket, I made a sudden pretext to leave her, ran to Monsieur de Villardin, and told him that I felt it my duty to acknowledge that I had just seen in the hands of my lady a part of the very same riband which I had once beheld in his own, fixed to a locket that seemed to give him great uneasiness. He scarcely heard half that I said, but, flying to his wife's dressing-room, gave way to a fit of passion which was fearful even to me. The result you well