They were love-letters and of every kind, from the note of the adventuress, “I saw you pass yesterday in the Bois, M. le Duc,” to the aristocratic reproaches of the last mistress but one, and the complaints of ladies deserted, and the page, still fresh, of recent confidences.  Monpavon was in the secret of all these mysteries—­put a name on each of them:  “That is Mme. Moor.  Hallo!  Mme. d’Athis!” A confusion of coronets and initials, of caprices and old habits, sullied by the promiscuity of this moment, all engulfed in the horrid closet by the light of a lamp, with the noise of an intermittent gush of water, departing into oblivion by a shameful road.  Suddenly Jenkins paused in his work of destruction.  Two satin-gray letters trembled as he held them in his fingers.

“Who is that?” asked Monpavon, noticing the unfamiliar handwriting and the Irishman’s nervous excitement.  “Ah, doctor, if you want to read them all, we shall never have finished.”

Jenkins, his cheeks flushed, the two letters in his hand, was consumed by a desire to carry them away, to pore over them at his ease, to martyrize himself with delight by reading them, perhaps also to forge out of this correspondence a weapon for himself against the imprudent woman who had signed her name.  But the rigorous correctness of the marquis made him afraid.  How could he distract his attention—­get him away?  The opportunity occurred of its own accord.  Among the letters, a tiny page written in a senile and shaky hand, caught the attention of the charlatan, who said with an ingenuous air:  “Oh, oh! here is something that does not look much like a billet-doux.  ’Mon Duc, to the rescue—­I am sinking!  The Court of Exchequer has once more stuck its nose into my affairs.’”

“What are you reading there?” exclaimed Monpavon abruptly, snatching the letter from his hands.  And immediately, thanks to Mora’s negligence in thus allowing such private letters to lie about, the terrible situation in which he would be left by the death of his protector returned to his mind.  In his grief, he had not yet given it a thought.  He told himself that in the midst of all his preparations for his departure, the duke might quite possibly overlook him; and, leaving Jenkins to complete the drowning of Don Juan’s casket by himself, he returned precipitately in the direction of the bed-chamber.  Just as he was on the point of entering, the sound of a discussion held him back behind the lowered door-curtain.  It was Louis’s voice, tearful like that of a beggar in a church-porch, trying to move the duke to pity for his distress, and asking permission to take certain bundles of bank-notes that lay in a drawer.  Oh, how hoarse, utterly wearied, hardly intelligible the answer, in which there could be detected the effort of the sick man to turn over in his bed, to bring back his vision from a far-off distance already half in sight: 

“Yes, yes; take them.  But for God’s sake, let me sleep—­let me sleep!”