“Your wronged husband, VOLASKI.”

While reading this, she shivered as with an ague.  When she had finished she crushed it up in her hand and put it in her pocket with the intention of destroying it on the first opportunity.

Then she went to a little ornamental writing-desk that stood in the corner of the room, and took a pencil and a sheet of note paper and wrote these words, without date or signature: 

“I was ready to see you this noon.  I cannot at this instant tell at what hour I can be certain to be alone; but will find out and let you know in the course of this day.”

She placed this note in an envelope, sealed it with a plain seal, and sent it down by the footman to Count Waldemar’s messenger.

Then she hurried up to her own bedchamber, rang for her maid, changed her dress for a white wrapper, and threw herself down, exhausted, upon a lounge.

She was almost fainting.

“This must be something like death!  Oh, if it were only death!” she sighed, as she closed her eyes.

An hour later she was found here by the Duke of Hereward, who showed no surprise at finding her reclining there, but only said that Doctor Velpeau was below stairs and would like to see her.

“Let him come up, then,” coldly answered Valerie.

And the duke himself went to conduct the physician to his patient.

He left them together for an hour, at the end of which Doctor Velpeau came down and reported to the anxious husband that his wife was not seriously out of health that her malady was more of the mind than the body, and that amusement and society would be her best medicines.

“Just what I cannot prevail on her to take,” said the duke, with an impatient shrug.  “She will go nowhere, will see nobody; but shuts herself up and mopes.  Now, to-day, I have received intelligence concerning the rather intricately embarrassed affairs of the late Baron de la Motte, which will oblige me to start for Algiers, for a personal interview with his heir-at-law, an officer in the Chasseurs d’Afrique, who cannot get leave of absence to come to me.  Now the question is, Doctor, shall I take the duchess with me, or leave her here?  Is she well enough to be left, or strong enough to travel?”

“Both!  She is both.  I assure you she is not at all ill in body.  Put the question to herself.  If she should be willing to go, take her.  The trip will do her good.  If she prefers to stay, leave her.  She is in no danger of illness or death.”

“But I should be gone, probably, a fortnight.  Could I, with safety to herself, take her so far away, for so long a time, from the best medical advice? or could I, on the other hand, leave her here for so distant a bourne and so long an absence?”

“With perfect safety; barring, of course, the human possibilities to which even the most fortunate, the most healthful and the best-guarded among us are more or less subject.  But again I counsel you to leave it to the duchess, whether she shall remain here or accompany you to Algiers.  She is equally fit for either plan,” said the great physician, as he drew on his gloves.