"M. M."
No. 5.--"Dear Baron! Once more my heartiest thanks! Thanks also for the delicacy with which you had arranged it all! How much I have wronged you! But could I anticipate that you would make me acquainted with Colonel St. Cyr himself? That I would hear from the lips of that veteran, in my beloved mother-tongue, the heroic death of my father? You would not have it that the colonel should find the daughter of a hero, the last scion of a once rich and illustrious family, in such reduced circumstances; you wished to spare me the mortification of having to receive the Count of St Cyr and Baron Grenwitz in a garret. You preferred to present me to him as the governess of a family whom you knew, and it was after all perfectly right and proper that I should call in your company upon the old gentleman, tired as he was from his long journey, at his hotel. Once more a thousand thanks! Thanks also for the silence by which you honored my renewed grief during the long drive from the hotel to my lodgings! I know how hard it must have been to a man of your liveliness. How have I deserved the interest you take in my fate? Ah! I have been so ill-behaved towards you! You ask me, finally, whether I believe now that you mean it well with me? This letter may give you the answer. You leave the city tomorrow--farewell, and may the enclosed little keepsake, worked by my hand at night, remind you sometimes of
"Your grateful
"Marie Montbert."
"Now the little doll is ready and well trained," said Albert, who read the familiar letter, with a strange and unnatural zeal, over and over again. He sat there like a conjurer studying the rules of a rival in the Black Art. "This Harald, it cannot be denied, was the real Ratcatcher of Hameln. I should like to know what kind of a colonel that was who invented the pretty story of the 'heroic death, shortly before the passage of the Beresina.' Perhaps a colonel of devils; at all events, one of his associates--the thing must have cost Baron Harald an immense amount of money. However, it was spent to some purpose, for in No. 6 he has made great progress!"
No. 6.--"I can hardly recover from my surprise. You back again! And back for my sake! Back, because your desire to see me left you no rest! Oh God! What is to become of it all! You are a rich nobleman--I am a poor girl, who, whatever my ancestors once may have been, must now earn my daily bread by hard work. My judgment tells me that all this can only bring wretchedness upon me; that I ought to avoid you, flee from you. What did I tell you yesterday? What did I promise? Oh, give me back my promise! I cannot, I must not see you. I must never see you again. I beseech you, leave the city. You must do it if you really love me. Farewell. Thousand thanks!
"Your Marie."
"What eight days' absence must have done!" said Albert, lighting his cigar again, which had gone out during his perusal of the last note. "'Your Marie!' How the brave Harald must have chuckled when he read this tearful epistle--here are the traces of the tears now. But let us go on."
No. 7.--"You must take back the costly jewels which an unknown man left here to-day. How have I deserved it, that you should think so meanly of me? You know that I love you in spite of my reason, which reproaches me constantly for it; I have not been able to conceal it from you any longer, nor did I wish to do so; but you ought at least to leave me the consolation that my love is pure and disinterested. These costly rubies, this red gold, it burns in my hand like coals of fire--leave me as you found me! If the poor simple girl could win your love, you see yourself that poverty and simplicity are perfectly compatible with love.
"M. M."