know, and probably are better acquainted with many of the particulars than I am. All I will say on that score," she added, somewhat sternly, "is, that it was a strange thing a bridge which had borne horses three or four days before, should give way under the weight of two people on foot.--Do you think, young gentleman, that the weight of Monsieur de Villardin's suspicions, and of the Duchess's sorrows, was sufficient to break it down?--However, if you had any hand in that deed too, my confession may make you feel some part of the remorse that I have felt since." "In regard to the matter you speak of," I replied, "I know no more than you do. It was extraordinary that the bridge should break; but yet such circumstances have happened before, and will again, without any one being able to tell why the structure that was firm at one moment should give way the next." She shook her head, doubtingly, and then went on:--"I have now told you all that matters much for you to hear, and you must promise me to repeat the whole to Monsieur de Villardin, word for word, as far as you can recollect it." "I do not well see," I replied, "what object is to be gained by doing so. The Duchess is dead; his suspicions were unjust; and I see no reason why I should wring his heart by recalling events to his memory, of which time itself has scarcely been able to soften the remembrance." "If you do not tell him," she cried, vehemently, "you shall not return to him for years. But stay," she added, perhaps recollecting that I was not easily moved by threats, "have you so little the feelings of honour, so small a portion of chivalrous spirit, as not to think it worth while to clear the reputation of an injured lady, even though she be dead?" "I should certainly think it worth while," I replied, "did her reputation require any defence, even to her husband: but such is not the case; and at this moment, Monsieur de Villardin is as completely convinced of his wife's innocence as you have ever been." "Indeed!" she replied--"indeed!" and gazing on my countenance for a moment or two, with a look in which surprise was mingled in some degree with disappointment, she repeated more than once the word, "indeed!" The instant after, she added, however, "Still you must tell him what I have said, for the mind of a suspicious man can never have too conclusive an evidence to remove his doubts; and if there be one point left uncleared, suspicion will hang round it still, and haunt him to his very last day."