Meanwhile, our dear invalid's suffering increased from day to day, and the moment soon came when she must inevitably give up the struggle. We saw that she was failing gradually; but she did not lose her presence of mind for an instant, nor cease her jests and her kind speeches. "How sorry I am," she said to Leoni, "that Juliette is your sister! Now that I am going to the other world, I must renounce you. I can neither demand nor desire that you remain faithful to me after my death. Unfortunately, you are certain to make a fool of yourself and throw yourself at the head of some woman who is unworthy of you. I know nobody in the world but your sister who is good enough for you; she is an angel, and no one but you is worthy of her." I could not resist this kindly flattery, and my affection for the princess became warmer and warmer as death slowly took her from us. I could not believe it possible that she would be taken away with all her faculties, all her tranquillity, and when we were all so happy together. I asked myself how we could possibly live without her, and I could not think of her great gilded armchair standing unoccupied, between Leoni and myself, without my eyes filling with tears. One evening, when I was reading to her while Leoni sat on the carpet warming her feet in a muff, she received a letter, read it through hastily, uttered a loud shriek and fainted. While I flew to her assistance, Leoni picked up the letter and ran his eye over it. Although the writing was disguised, he recognized the hand of the Vicomte de Chalm. It was a denunciation of me, with circumstantial details concerning my family, my abduction, my relations with Leoni; and, with all the rest, a mass of detestable falsehoods regarding my morals and my character. At the shriek which the princess uttered, Lorenzo, who was always hovering about us like a bird of evil omen, entered the room, I know not how; and Leoni, taking him into a corner, showed him the viscount's letter. When they came back to us, the marquis was very calm, and had a mocking smile on his lips, as usual; while Leoni, intensely agitated, seemed to question him with his eyes as if to ask his advice. The princess was still unconscious in my arms. The marquis shrugged his shoulders. "Your wife is intolerably stupid," he said, so loud that I overheard him. "Her presence here now will have the worst possible effect. Send her away; tell her to go for help. I will take everything on myself." "But what will you do?" said Leoni, in great anxiety. "Never fear. I have had an expedient all ready for a long while; it's a paper that I always have about me. But send Juliette away."