And then suddenly we heard her in the distance.  Very faint at first were the birr of wheels and the tat-tat-tat of the horses’ feet.  Then they grew louder and clearer and louder yet, until a pair of yellow lanterns swung round the curve, and in their light we saw the two big brown horses tearing along the high, blue carriage at the back of them.  The postilion pulled them up panting and foaming within a few yards of us.  In a moment we were at the window and had raised our hands in a salute to the beautiful pale face which looked out at us.

‘We are the three officers of the Emperor, madame,’ said I, in a low voice, leaning my face down to the open window.  ’You have already been warned that we should wait upon you.’

The Countess had a very beautiful, cream-tinted complexion of a sort which I particularly admire, but she grew whiter and whiter as she looked up at me.  Harsh lines deepened upon her face until she seemed, even as I looked at her, to turn from youth into age.

‘It is evident to me,’ she said, ‘that you are three impostors.’

If she had struck me across the face with her delicate hand she could not have startled me more.  It was not her words only, but the bitterness with which she hissed them out.

‘Indeed, madame,’ said I.  ’You do us less than justice.  These are the Colonel Despienne and Captain Tremeau.  For myself, my name is Brigadier Gerard, and I have only to mention it to assure anyone who has heard of me that——­’

‘Oh, you villains!’ she interrupted.  ’You think that because I am only a woman I am very easily to be hoodwinked!  You miserable impostors!’

I looked at Despienne, who had turned white with anger, and at Tremeau, who was tugging at his moustache.

‘Madame,’ said I, coldly, ’when the Emperor did us the honour to intrust us with this mission, he gave me this amethyst ring as a token.  I had not thought that three honourable gentlemen would have needed such corroboration, but I can only confute your unworthy suspicions by placing it in your hands.’

She held it up in the light of the carriage lamp, and the most dreadful expression of grief and of horror contorted her face.

‘It is his!’ she screamed, and then, ’Oh, my God, what have I done?  What have I done?’

I felt that something terrible had befallen.  ‘Quick, madame, quick!’ I cried.  ‘Give us the papers!’

‘I have already given them.’

‘Given them!  To whom?’

‘To three officers.’

‘When?’

‘Within the half-hour.’

‘Where are they?’

’God help me, I do not know.  They stopped the berline, and I handed them over to them without hesitation, thinking that they had come from the Emperor.’

It was a thunder-clap.  But those are the moments when I am at my finest.