The task then lay with me; and when Madame de Villardin had retired for the night, I entreated the Duke to grant me a few minute's audience. He first heard my request with a smile, and asked whether to-morrow would not do as well; but the next moment his demon woke suddenly up, a cloud came over his brow, and I could see that suspicion and distrust were once more alive. Starting up, he took one of the tapers, and beckoning me into the library, which was more retired and secure than the saloon, he shut the door, and casting himself into an arm chair, exclaimed, almost fiercely, "Now! boy! Now! What is it you have to say?" I saw that he was dreadfully agitated, even by his own imaginations, for as yet I had not said one word to cause the slightest emotion: but still, as I have said, he was moved in an extraordinary degree; and I knew, that unless I took the means on which I had before resolved to gain an uninterrupted hearing, my story would be cut short in the midst. Advancing, therefore, as near as I well could, I knelt down before him, and said, "My lord, I have something to tell you; but you are so quick, that I am afraid of your not hearing it all. If you will give me your word of honour that you will hear every word I have to say without interrupting me, I will go on; but if you will not, I will hold my tongue, and, on my life, nothing shall ever make me open my lips." He repaid me with a fierce glance for the conditions that I made; but as he knew that I was one to keep my word, he promised most solemnly to hear me to an end. "Well then, my lord," I said, "I shall only farther claim, that as you give credit to one part of my story, so you shall give credit to the other; for every word that I am about to speak is equally true." I then proceeded to recount all that I had seen in the morning after he had sent me back for the papers; and never did I see a more terrific struggle take place in a human being than that which agitated him during the recital. When I first spoke of Monsieur de Mesnil's horse tied to the tree, he had nearly broke forth; and when I came to relate the scene that first met my eye in the library, he started up from off his chair with every muscle of his face working under excessive emotion. He remembered his promise, however; and sitting down again, covered his eyes with his hand while I proceeded; but as I concluded with the words which his wife had uttered, he caught me by the arm, and gazed eagerly in my face, exclaiming--"Ha! did she say that?" "On my honour! On my soul, she did," I replied; "as I hope in heaven!"