tell me if you have ever imagined for one of your romances a situation similar to mine.  You remember the mortal fear in which I lived last winter, with the presence of my brother-in-law, and the danger of his denouncing me to my poor Maud, from stupidity, from a British sense of virtue, from hatred.  You remember, also, what that voyage to Poland cost me, after those long months of anxiety?  The press of affairs and the illness of my aunt coming just at the moment when I was freed from Ardrahan, inspired me with miserable forebodings.  I have always believed in presentiments.  I had one.  I was not mistaken.  From the first letter I received—­from whom you can guess—­I saw that there was taking place in Rome something which threatened me in what I held dearest on earth, in that love for which I sacrificed all, toward which I walked by trampling on the noblest of hearts.  Was Catherine ceasing to love me?  When one has spent two years of one’s life in a passion—­and what years!—­one clings to it with every fibre!  I will spare you the recital of those first weeks spent in going here and there, in paying visits to relatives, in consulting lawyers, in caring for my sick aunt, in fulfilling my duty toward my son, since the greater part of the fortune will go to him.  And always with this firm conviction:  She no longer writes to me as formerly, she no longer loves me.  Ah! if I could show you the letter she wrote when I was absent once before.  You have a great deal of talent, Julien, but you have never composed anything more beautiful.”

He paused, as if the part of the confession he was approaching cost him a great effort, while Dorsenne interpolated: 

“A change of tone in correspondence is not, however, sufficient to explain the fever in which I see you.”

“No,” resumed Gorka, “but it was not merely a change of tone.  I complained.  For the first time my complaint found no echo.  I threatened to cease writing.  No reply.  I wrote to ask forgiveness.  I received a letter so cold that in my turn I wrote an angry one.  Another silence!  Ah!  You can imagine the terrible effect produced upon me by an unsigned letter which I received fifteen days since.  It arrived one morning.  It bore the Roman postmark.  I did not recognize the handwriting.  I opened it.  I saw two sheets of paper on which were pasted cuttings from a French journal.  I repeat it was unsigned; it was an anonymous letter.”

“And you read it?” interrupted Dorsenne.  “What folly!”

“I read it,” replied the Count.  “It began with words of startling truth relative to my own situation.  That our affairs are known to others we may be sure, since we know theirs.  We should, consequently, remember that we are at the mercy of their indiscretion, as they are at ours.  The beginning of the note served as a guarantee of the truth of the end, which was a detailed, minute recital of an intrigue which Madame Steno had been carrying on during my absence, and with whom?  With the man whom I always mistrusted, that dauber who wanted to paint Alba’s portrait—­but whose desires I nipped in the bud—­with the fellow who degraded himself by a shameful marriage for money, and who calls himself an artist—­with that American—­with Lincoln Maitland!”