He wiped his eyes and seated himself at a table, and, all in a flutter, pretended to be the state’s.

It was not Jacintha, as he expected, but the other servant.  She made a low reverence, cast a look of admiration on him, and gave him a letter.  His eye darted on it:  his hand trembled as he took it.  He turned away again to open it.  He forced himself to say, in a tolerably calm voice, “I will send an answer.”

The letter was apparently from the baroness de Beaurepaire; a mere line inviting him to pay her a visit.  It was written in a tremulous hand.  Edouard examined the writing, and saw directly it was written by Rose.

Being now, naturally enough, full of suspicion, he set this down as an attempt to disguise her hand.  “So,” said he, to himself, “this is the game.  The old woman is to be drawn into it, too.  She is to help to make Georges Dandin of me.  I will go.  I will baffle them all.  I will expose this nest of depravity, all ceremony on the surface, and voluptuousness and treachery below.  O God! who could believe that creature never loved me!  They shall none of them see my weakness.  Their benefactor shall be still their superior.  They shall see me cold as ice, and bitter as gall.”

But to follow him farther just now, would be to run too far in advance of the main story.  I must, therefore, return to Beaurepaire, and show, amongst other things, how this very letter came to be written.

When Josephine and Rose awoke from that startled slumber that followed the exhaustion of that troubled night, Rose was the more wretched of the two.  She had not only dishonored herself, but stabbed the man she loved.

Josephine, on the other hand, was exhausted, but calm.  The fearful escape she had had softened down by contrast her more distant terrors.

She began to shut her eyes again, and let herself drift.  Above all, the doctor’s promise comforted her:  that she should go to Paris with him, and have her boy.

This deceitful calm of the heart lasted three days.

Carefully encouraged by Rose, it was destroyed by Jacintha.

Jacintha, conscious that she had betrayed her trust, was almost heart-broken.  She was ashamed to appear before her young mistress, and, coward-like, wanted to avoid knowing even how much harm she had done.

She pretended toothache, bound up her face, and never stirred from the kitchen.  But she was not to escape:  the other servant came down with a message:  “Madame Raynal wanted to see her directly.”

She came quaking, and found Josephine all alone.

Josephine rose to meet her, and casting a furtive glance round the room first, threw her arms round Jacintha’s neck, and embraced her with many tears.

“Was ever fidelity like yours? how could you do it, Jacintha? and how can I ever repay it?  But, no; it is too base of me to accept such a sacrifice from any woman.”