Madame Rochefort had, when dying, given this letter to Lorelie with the injunction that it was not to be read till after its writer had been laid in the grave.
"Dearest Lorelie," it ran, "it may be that the disclosure contained in this letter will cause you to view the memory of your mother with feelings of shame, if not of contempt: but leave the judgment of my conduct, or, if you should so term it, my sin, to that higher tribunal before which I now stand, and be not too quick to condemn, since no woman can rightly judge me unless she herself has stood in a similar position to mine.
"You will surmise by these words that I have some strange confession to make, and such in truth is the case.
"You, my daughter, in common with the rest of the world, have hitherto regarded Eric Marville as a murderer, and your father, Noel Rochefort, as a man of stainless honour. Learn now the truth that these opinions must be reversed: it was your father, and not Eric Marville, that murdered Henri Duchesne. And for twenty years I have kept this guilty secret locked within my breast, shielding my husband's reputation to the injury of another's.
"Let me tell the tale, and that in as few words as possible, for it is a melancholy reminiscence; why should I linger over it?
"I married your father in 1869.
"During the first year of our wedded life we lived at Nantes, your father's regiment having been stationed there.
"Our circle of friends included, besides others, the Englishman, Eric Marville; and the Gascon, Henri Duchesne. The latter, some years before, had been a suitor for my hand; and to my uneasiness I discovered that though he himself was now married, he had not abandoned his passion for me. I remained deaf to his advances. Thereupon his love turned to hatred, and, desirous of evoking my husband's suspicion and jealousy, he had the baseness to boast among his friends that he had found in me an easy conquest. Though full of secret fury your father hesitated to send a challenge, since Duchesne was deadly with pistol and sword: to face him in duel was to face certain death.
"Your father was a Corsican and took a Corsican's way of avenging himself.
"One memorable summer night I was sitting alone in the upper room of our house, which overlooked the Place Graslin, awaiting the return of your father from the Armorique Club. The hour was late. All was quiet in the square below. I opened the window and looked out upon the moonlit night. A footstep upon the pavement attracted my attention, and stepping forwards I looked downwards over the rail of the veranda. Henri Duchesne was standing below: he looked up, saw me, and kissed his hand. At that moment, from the shadow of the doorway, there leaped a man whose fingers immediately twined themselves around Duchesne's throat. Though taken by surprise he instantly recovered himself, and drew forth a dagger, the recent gift, as I afterwards learned, of Eric Marville.