beset by myriads of terrible threatening phantoms.  I accuse myself of having been imprudent and cruel; I fear I have not, as you say, inspired two undying passions, two life-long devotions, but exasperated two vindictive men.  I well know that M. de Monbert did not love me, and yet I fear his unjust resentment.  I recall Edgar’s absurd breach of faith, and Edgar, whose image had until now only seemed ridiculous, Edgar appears before my troubled vision furious and threatening.  I am haunted by a vague remembrance:  The day of my wedding, after the benediction, as we were leaving the chapel, I was terribly frightened—­in the silent gloom of the immense church I heard a voice, an angry stifled voice, utter my name ... the name I bore at Pont de l’Arche—­Louise!...  I quickly turned around to see whence came this voice that could affect me so powerfully at such a moment!  I could discover no one....  Louise!...  Many women are called Louise, it is a common name—­perhaps it was some father calling his daughter, or some brother his sister.  There was nothing remarkable in the calling of this name, and yet it filled me with alarm.  I recalled Edgar’s looks on that evening he was so angry with me; the rage gleaming in his eyes; the violent contraction of his features, his voice terrible and stifled like the voice in the church, and I was now convinced that his love was full of haughty pride, selfishness and hatred.  But I said to myself, if it had been he, he would have followed me and looked in our carriage—­I would have seen him in the church, or on the portico outside....  Besides, why should he have come?... he had given up seeing me; he could easily have found me had he so desired; he knew where Madame Taverneau’s house was in Paris, and he knew that I lived with her; if he had hoped to be received by me, he would have simply called to pay a visit....  Finally, if he was at this early hour—­six in the morning—­in the church, at so great a distance from where I live, it was not to act as a spy upon me.  The man who called Louise was not Edgar—­it could not have been Edgar.  This reflection reassured me.  I questioned Raymond; he had seen no one, heard no one.  I remembered that M. de Meilhan was not in Paris, and tried to convince myself that it was foolish to think of him any more.  But yesterday I learned in a letter from Madame Taverneau—­who as yet knows nothing of my marriage or departure from Paris, and will not know, until a year has elapsed, of the fortune I have settled upon her—­I learned that M. de Meilhan left Havre and came direct to Paris.  His mother did not tell him that I had gone with her to bring him home.  When she found that her own influence was sufficient to detain him in France, she was silent as to my share in the journey.  I thank her for it, as I greatly prefer he should remain ignorant of the foolish idea I had of sacrificing myself at his shrine in order to make his mother happy.  But what alarms me is that she keeps him in Paris