I set to work, and was not long in obtaining my answer.  When he saw that it was to the same effect as Esther’s, though differently expressed, he had no longer any doubts as to his daughter’s skill, and hastened to go and test the pretended diamond, and to advise his associates to say nothing about the matter after they had received proofs of the worthlessness of the stone.  This advice was, as it happened, useless; for though the persons concerned said nothing, everybody knew about it, and people said, with their usual malice, that the dupes had been duped most thoroughly, and that St. Germain had pocketed the hundred thousand florins; but this was not the case.

Esther was very proud of her success, but instead of being satisfied with what she had done, she desired more fervently every day to possess the science in its entirety, as she supposed I possessed it.

It soon became known that St. Germain had gone by Emden and had embarked for England, where he had arrived in safety.  In due time we shall hear some further details concerning this celebrated impostor; and in the meanwhile I must relate a catastrophe of another kind, which was near to have made me die the death of a fool.

It was Christmas Day.  I had got up early in the morning in better spirits than usual.  The old women tell you that always presages misfortune, but I was as far then as I am now from making my happiness into an omen of grief.  But this time chance made the foolish belief of good effect.  I received a letter and a large packet from Paris; they came from Manon.  I opened the letter and I thought I should have died of grief when I read,—­

“Be wise, and receive the news I give you calmly.  The packet contains your portrait and all the letters you have written to me.  Return me my portrait, and if you have kept my letters be kind enough to burn them.  I rely on your honour.  Think of me no more.  Duty bids me do all I can to forget you, for at this hour to-morrow I shall become the wife of M. Blondel of the Royal Academy, architect to the king.  Please do not seem as if you knew me if we chance to meet on your return to Paris.”

This letter struck me dumb with astonishment, and for more than two hours after I read it I was, as it were, bereft of my senses.  I sent word to M. d’O——­ that, not feeling well, I was going to keep my room all day.  When I felt a little better I opened the packet.  The first thing to fall out was my portrait.  I looked at it, and such was the perturbation of my mind, that, though the miniature really represented me as of a cheerful and animated expression, I thought I beheld a dreadful and a threatening visage.  I went to my desk and wrote and tore up a score of letters in which I overwhelmed the faithless one with threats and reproaches.