“Then your word of honour must give way to the necessity of saving her honour.  Your love retards your steps, but everything depends on our promptitude, and on the interval between the first and second letter.  Follow my advice, I beg of you, and you will know the rest from the letter I am going to write for you to copy.  Quick I write letter number one.”

I did not allow myself to reflect.  I was persuaded that no better plan could be found than that of my charming governess, and I proceeded to write the following love-letter to the impudent monster: 

“The impudence of your letter is in perfect accord with the three nights you spent in discovering a fact which has no existence save in your own perverse imagination.  Know, cursed woman, that I never left my room, and that I have not to deplore the shame of having passed two hours with a being such as you.  God knows with whom you did pass them, but I mean to find out if the whole story is not the creation of your devilish brain, and when I do so I will inform you.

“You may thank Heaven that I did not open your letter till after M. and Madame had gone.  I received it in their presence, but despising the hand that wrote it I put it in my pocket, little caring what infamous stuff it contained.  If I had been curious enough to read it and my guests had seen it, I would have you know that I would have gone in pursuit of you, and at this moment you would have been a corpse.  I am quite well, and have no symptoms of any complaint, but I shall not lower myself to convince you of my health, as your eyes would carry contagion as well as your wretched carcase.”

I shewed the letter to my dear Dubois, who thought it rather strongly expressed, but approved of it on the whole; I then sent it to the horrible being who had caused me such unhappiness.  An hour and a half afterwards I sent her the following letter, which I copied without addition or subtraction: 

“A quarter of an hour after I had sent off my letter, the village doctor came to tell me that my man had need of his treatment for a disease of a shameful nature which he had contracted quite recently.  I told him to take care of his patient; and when he had gone I went to see the invalid, who confessed, after some pressure, that he had received this pretty present from you.  I asked him how he had contrived to obtain access to you, and he said that he saw you going by your self in the dark into the apartment of M.——.  Knowing that I had gone to bed, and having no further services to render me, curiosity made him go and see what you were doing there by stealth, as if you had wanted to see the lady, who would be in bed by that time, you would not have gone by the door leading to the garden.  He at first thought that you went there with ill-intent, and he waited an hour to see if you stole anything, in which case he would have arrested you; but as you did not come out, and he heard no noise, he resolved