"Fool!"—the duchess as she spoke unlocked
a secretaire, and drew out a small packet of letters—
"there are both hers and yours; they
were intercepted by my orders. All I want you
to do is to take her last and produce it yourself
to the duke, altering the date of it to yesterday
as a proof of her contempt and hatred of
him. Fool! do you not see she has taken
his hand only in despair of gaining back
yours? Punish her for so easily relinquishing
you."

Mohrart stood there like a man mortally
wounded: his heart ceased almost to beat.
Then a fire came into his eyes. " Tempter, sent
from below," he said, " you have wrecked the
happiness of two hearts, merely to help forward
some evil scheme, to advance some
evil purpose, whither tending you yourself
best know; but I will not interrupt the
progress of Beatrice to the rank and power
she will ennoble. I have prayed to Heaven to
give me the strength to surrender her for the
happiness of this people. The strength was
given me. I will not turn back. I will not be
faithless to Heaven now to advance the wicked
intrigues of a corrupt woman."

The duchess was at a white heat. She
burned, but there were no sparkles and there
was no blaze.

"'Tis well," she said. " Wise only in books,
you push from you honours I offered you. Fools!
you shall both perish; you shall learn what it is
to brave my anger. Had I found you obedient
I might have seated you on the throne by my
side, now only misery and desolation await you.
You do not comprehend the grandeur of my
views, and you place yourself beneath the foot
of a mindless girl. Be it so. You shall soon
learn how devastating is the anger of a
slighted woman."

Here the duchess unlocked the door and
angrily rang a silver bell that stood on the table.
A hard-featured female attendant instantly appeared
with a tray of chocolate and a little
crystal bottle of ratafia.

"Professor," she said, "will you please add
two drops of that ratafia to the dnke's chocolate;
my hand shakes; he prefers it to vanille.
Louise, tell the duke his chocolate awaits him
here."

"I did not wish Louise to see that we had
quarrelled," said the duchess. " Adieu, Professor
Mohrart. Adieu, long-suffering lover.
You have not gall enough to hate even the man
who will marry the woman who still loves you.
Excellent Christian, adieu; some day, perhaps,
you will think of revenge, but beware of mine
first."

The duke's voice was heard at the very moment
the last glimpse of the crimson silk train
of the duchess swept from the room. He
came in patting a huge tawny stag hound with
which a long-eared spaniel of the finest dimensions
was playing with dignified condescension.

"Well, professor," he said, as he threw himself
languidly in a gilt chair, " to tell you the
truth, I am infernally wearied with that absurd
pastime that men have christened hunting, and
which seems to me a mere ingenious way of encouraging
men of fashion to break their valuable
necks. My amiable stepmother sent me word
that Desanges had brought my chocolate here.
Aye, there I see it is. Would you oblige me
by handing it—a thousand thanks.. Do you
care for Sèvres, M. le Professor?"

The professor replied in the affirmative.

"This cup of mine is mere peasant crockery to
the jewelled set I have ordered for our wedding
breakfast—by the by, my dear professor, why
did you never marry? There's that handsome
blonde daughter of the lord chamberlain—with
thirty thousand——"

Here the duke raised the cup to his lips and
began languidly to sip. He put it down.

"This chocolate is far too strong of the
ratafia." As he said this the duke suddenly rose
with a peculiar wild stare in his eyes, staggered,
caught at the tablecloth for support, and dragged
it towards him till it fell on the floor, throwing
the candelabra down with a crash. Then he
fell heavily forward upon his face before the
astonished professor could run to his assistance.

The professor knelt over the fallen man, and
was in the act of loosening his neckcloth as the
duchess and her servant entered. They uttered
piercing cries of horror, and ran to raise the
duke in their arms; but already the duke was
in the agonies of death. The only words he
faintly articulated were:

"It was Mohrart who put poison into my
chocolate. I always thought he hated me.
Mind you, people, that he is broken—on—the
—wheel——" Then he moaned again, made
a faint effort to rise, groaned twice, and fell
back dead in the arms of a servant.

III. THE SEALED KNOTS.

"THERE is no hope for him," said a barber
in a crowd outside the town hall of Eisenherz,
the day of Mohrart's trial, to his friend the
saddler, "no hope at all, I tell you. The
Lord Chamberlain's own man, who has been
all day at the trial, tells me that the dowager
duchess's maid can swear she saw Mohrart
pour laurel water into the duke's chocolate,
a bottle of ratafia mixed with laurel water
was actually found on the floor of Mohrart's
bedroom, and there was laurel water afterwards
disovered in the chocolate left in the
cup. Oh, he was a double-dyed villain! Yet
he looked so plausible. Well, I shall go and
see him on the wheel, neighbour."

"And the duchess's gentleman, I hear," said
a third gossip, who just then came up " has
produced intercepted letters, showing love still
existed between Mohrart and Lady Beatrice;
but Mohrart's defence is that the dates have been
forged, or that they were letters of a year
ago, before the duke admired Beatrice, and
when he and Beatrice were engaged to be
married. There is a report that the Sealed Knots
intend to rescue him from prison, believing him
a victim of some state intrigue, so the guards