“That is like night and day,” interrupted the Marquis.  “Hold yourself in readiness.  At three o’clock come for me and I will give you a lesson.  And remember there is a merciful God for the brave!”

Although Florent deserved praise for the cheerfulness of which his reply was proof, the first moments which he spent alone after the departure of his two witnesses were very painful.

That which Chapron experienced during those few moments was simply very natural anxiety, the enervation caused by looking at the clock, and saying: 

“In twenty-four hours the hand will be on this point of the dial.  And shall I still be living?"....  He was, however, manly, and knew how to control himself.  He struggled against the feeling of weakness, and, while awaiting the time to rejoin his friends, he resolved to write his last wishes.  For years his intention had been to leave his entire fortune to his brother-in-law.  He, therefore, made a rough draft of his will in that sense, with a pen at first rather unsteady, then quite firm.  His will completed, he had courage enough to write two letters, addressed the one to that brother-in-law, the other to his sister.  When he had finished his work the hands of the clock pointed to ten minutes of three.

“Still seventeen hours and a half to wait,” said he, “but I think I have conquered my nerves.  A short walk, too, will benefit me.”

So he decided to go on foot to the rendezvous named by Montfanon.  He carefully locked the three envelopes in the drawer of his desk.  He saw, on passing, that Lincoln was not in his studio.  He asked the footman if Madame Maitland was at home.  The reply received was that she was dressing, and that she had ordered her carriage for three o’clock.

“Good,” said he, “neither of them will have the slightest suspicion; I am saved.”

How astonished he would have been could he, while walking leisurely toward his destination, have returned in thought to the smoking-room he had just left!  He would have seen a woman glide noiselessly through the open door, with the precaution of a malefactor!  He would have seen her examine, without disarranging, all the papers on the table.  She frowned on seeing Dorsenne’s and the Marquis’s cards.  She took from the blotting-case some loose leaves and held them in front of the glass, trying to read there the imprint left upon them.  He would have seen finally the woman draw from her pocket a bunch of keys.  She inserted one of them in the lock of the drawer which Florent had so carefully turned, and took from that drawer the three unsealed envelopes he had placed within it.  And the woman who thus read, with a face contracted by anguish, the papers discovered in such a manner, thanks to a ruse the abominable indelicacy of which gave proof of shameful habits of espionage, was his own sister, the Lydia whom he believed so gentle and so simple, to whom he had penned an adieu so tender in case he should be killed—­the Lydia who would have terrified him had he seen her thus, with passion distorting the face which was considered insignificant!  She herself, the audacious spy, trembled as if she would fall, her eyes dilated, her bosom heaved, her teeth chattered, so greatly was she unnerved by what she had discovered, by the terrible consequences which she had brought about.