As for me, in consequence of such terror, I was seized with convulsive spasms, and for several days, as I now hear, the doctors were very uneasy, and even feared for my reason.  But thanks to the strength of my constitution, I am now almost myself again, and nothing would remain of this cruel agitation if, by a singular fatality, it were not connected with another unpleasant circumstance which has lately seen fit to fasten upon my life.

Before receiving from your letter these fresh assurances of your regard, I had thought of invoking the help of your friendship and advice; and to-day, when you tell me that it would make you happy and proud to take the place of my poor Louise de Chaulieu, the precious friend of whom death has deprived me, can I hesitate for a moment?

I take you at your word, and that delightful cleverness with which you foiled the fools who commented on your marriage to Monsieur de Camps [see “Madame Firmiani"], that singular tact with which we saw you steer your way through circumstances that were full of embarrassment and danger, in short the wonderful art which enabled you to keep both your secret and your dignity, I now ask you to put to the service of assisting me in the dilemma I mentioned just now.

Unfortunately in consulting a physician we naturally want to see him and tell him our symptoms viva voce, and it is here that Monsieur de Camps with his industrial genius seems to me most aggravating.  Thanks to those villanous iron-works which he has taken it into his head to purchase, you are almost lost to Paris and to society!  Formerly when we had you here, at hand, in ten minutes talk, without embarrassment, without preparation, I could have told you everything; but now I am obliged to think over what I have to say, to gather myself together, and pass into the solemnity of a written statement.

But after all, perhaps it is better to plunge boldly in, and since, in spite of circumlocutions and preambles, I shall have sooner or later to come to the point, why not say at once that my trouble concerns the stranger who saved my daughter’s life.

Stranger! yes, a stranger to Monsieur de l’Estorade and to all who have told you about the accident, but not a stranger to me, whom, for the last three months, this man has condescended to honor with the most obstinate attention.  That the mother of three children, one of them a big boy of fifteen, should at thirty-three years of age become the object of an ardent passion will seem to you, as it does to me, an impossible fact; and that is the ridiculous misfortune about which I want to consult you.

When I say that this stranger is known to me, I must correct myself; for I know neither his name, nor his abode, nor anything about him.  I have never met him in society, and I may add that, although he wears the ribbon of the Legion of honor, there is nothing in his air and manner—­which are totally devoid of elegance—­to make me suppose I ever shall meet him in our world.