"Stay, my worthy friend; the unjust suspicions I have already entertained have cost me too dear, and occasioned too much grief to myself and others for me to venture again to affix blame to any one except on certain grounds."
"But these attacks speak with a startling reality; there is no mistaking their import; and what if they are repeated?"
"I shall rejoice if it be so; that which yesterday I dreaded and sought to avoid, to-day I desire and court."
"Ah, Monsieur Arnold! if your life is valueless to yourself, do you owe nothing to the friends who would survive to lament your loss? And you do not intend making any efforts to discover the vile perpetrators of this shameful machination?"
"None whatever! why should I? am I not now here to say, Farewell for ever?"
And with these words M. de Hansfeld quitted the room in a state of mind bordering on desperation.
CHAPTER XXXVI
[THE RENDEZVOUS]
The morning arrived on which M. de Brévannes was to meet Madame de Hansfeld in the Jardin des Plantes. He went there at eleven o'clock.
The perusal of the black book—this mysterious confidant of the most intimate thoughts of Paula—had given Bertha's husband almost hopes: the secrets he believed he had surprised were thus summed up:—