“I do not know.”
“What do you mean? Has he gone intending not to return?”
“Undoubtedly;—at ten o’clock at night his horses took him to the barrier of Charenton; there a post-chaise was waiting for him—he entered it with his valet de chambre, saying that he was going to Fontainebleau.”
“Then what did you mean—”
“Stay—he left a letter for me.”
“A letter?”
“Yes; read it.”
And the baroness took from her pocket a letter which she gave to Debray. Debray paused a moment before reading, as if trying to guess its contents, or perhaps while making up his mind how to act, whatever it might contain. No doubt his ideas were arranged in a few minutes, for he began reading the letter which caused so much uneasiness in the heart of the baroness, and which ran as follows:
“ ‘Madame and most faithful wife.’ ”
Debray mechanically stopped and looked at the baroness, whose face became covered with blushes.
“Read,” she said.
Debray continued:
“ ‘When you receive this, you will no longer have a husband. Oh, you need not be alarmed, you will only have lost him as you have lost your daughter; I mean that I shall be travelling on one of the thirty or forty roads leading out