The letter was signed: “Athenais de Fondege.” It had been written by the General’s wife. She resumed her perusal of it, and this is what she read: “I this instant hear of the cruel loss you have sustained, and also learn that, for want of testamentary provisions, the poor Count de Chalusse leaves you, his idolized daughter, almost without resources. I will not attempt to offer you consolation, God alone can assuage certain sorrows. I should come and weep with you if I were not kept in bed by illness. But to-morrow, whatever happens, I shall be with you before breakfast. It is at such a time as this, my poor dear afflicted child, that one can tell one’s true friends; and we are yours as I hope to prove. The General feels that he should be insulting and betraying the memory of a man who was his dearest friend for thirty years, if he did not take the count’s place, if he did not become your second father. He has offered you our modest home; you have refused. Why? With the authority conferred upon me by my age and my position as the mother of a family, I tell you that you ought to accept. What other course can you possibly think of? Where would you go, my poor, dear child? But we will discuss this matter to-morrow. I shall find a way to persuade you to love us, and to allow yourself to be loved. In MY heart you will fill the place of the beloved and lamented daughter I have lost--my beautiful and gentle Bathilde. Once more I say farewell until to-morrow--trusting that you will accept the sympathy and affection of your best friend, “ATHENAIS DE FONDEGE.” Mademoiselle Marguerite was thunderstruck, for the writer of this epistle was a lady whom she had only met five or six times, who had never visited her, and with whom she had scarcely exchanged twenty words. Moreover, she well remembered certain glances with which Madame de Fondege had, on one occasion, tried to crush her--glances so full of cruel contempt that they had drawn bitter tears of sorrow, shame, and anger, from the poor girl. The count himself had said to her at the time: “Don’t be so childish, Marguerite, as to trouble yourself about this foolish and impudent woman.”