"His good friend for life!" murmured Alfred; raising his hands as if to call heaven to witness this new outrageous irony.
[Illustration: Louise in Prison]
"But how could he do it?" said Anastasia. "This portrait was not there this morning when I made the bed, very sure. You took the key with you just now: nobody could have entered while you were absent? How, then, once more, could this portrait get there? Could it be you, by chance, who put it there, old darling?"
At this monstrous hypothesis, Alfred bounced from his seat; he opened his eyes wide and threatening.
"I fasten in my alcove the portrait of this evil-doer, who, not content with persecuting me by his odious presence, pursues me at night in my dreams—the daytime in a picture! Would you make me mad, Anastasia? mad enough to be chained?"
"Well! for the sake of making peace, you might have agreed with
Cabrion during my absence. Where would be the great harm?"
"I make up with—oh, merciful powers! you hear her?"
"And then, he might have given you his portrait, as a pledge of friendship. If this is so, do not deny it."
"Anastasia!"
"If this is so, it must be confessed you are as capricious as a pretty woman."