You tell me that you were not in Paris during the year 1816 of which I speak.  If you had been, you would surely recollect the sensation caused throughout the entire city by the disappearance of M. le Marquis de Firmin-Latour, one of the most dashing young officers in society and one of its acknowledged leaders.  It was the 10th day of October.  M. le Marquis had breakfasted in the company of Madame at nine o’clock.  A couple of hours later he went out, saying he would be home for dejeuner.  Madame clearly expected him, for his place was laid, and she ordered the dejeuner to be kept back over an hour in anticipation of his return.  But he did not come.  The afternoon wore on and he did not come.  Madame sat down at two o’clock to dejeuner alone.  She told the major-domo that M. le Marquis was detained in town and might not be home for some time.  But the major-domo declared that Madame’s voice, as she told him this, sounded tearful and forced, and that she ate practically nothing, refusing one succulent dish after another.

The staff of servants was thus kept on tenterhooks all day, and when the shadows of evening began to draw in, the theory was started in the kitchen that M. le Marquis had either met with an accident or been foully murdered.  No one, however, dared speak of this to Madame la Marquise, who had locked herself up in her room in the early part of the afternoon, and since then had refused to see anyone.  The major-domo was now at his wits’ end.  He felt that in a measure the responsibility of the household rested upon his shoulders.  Indeed he would have taken it upon himself to apprise M. Mauruss Mosenstein of the terrible happenings, only that the worthy gentleman was absent from Paris just then.

Mme. la Marquise remained shut up in her room until past eight o’clock.  Then she ordered dinner to be served and made pretence of sitting down to it; but again the major-domo declared that she ate nothing, whilst subsequently the confidential maid who had undressed her vowed that Madame had spent the whole night walking up and down the room.

Thus two agonizing days went by; agonizing they were to everybody.  Madame la Marquise became more and more agitated, more and more hysterical as time went on, and the servants could not help but notice this, even though she made light of the whole affair, and desperate efforts to control herself.  The heads of her household, the major-domo, the confidential maid, the chef de cuisine, did venture to drop a hint or two as to the possibility of an accident or of foul play, and the desirability of consulting the police; but Madame would not hear a word of it; she became very angry at the suggestion, and declared that she was perfectly well aware of M. le Marquis’s whereabouts, that he was well and would return home almost immediately.