"
"Within three paces of him! And what was he doing there?"
"He came to meet me," she answered, her voice trembling slightly.
"He could have told you so, but he would not shame me."
"This is true?" I said, eyeing her closely.
"I swear it!" she answered, clasping her hands. And then, with
a sudden flash of rage, "Will the other woman swear to her tale?"
she cried.
"Ha!" I said, "what other woman?"
"The woman who sent you to that place," she answered. "He would
not tell me her name, or I would go to her now and wring the
truth from her. But he confessed to me that he had let a woman
into the secret of our meeting; and this is her work."
I stood a moment pondering, with my eyes on the girl's excited
face, and my thoughts, following this new clue through the maze
of recent events; wherein I could not fail to see that it led to
a very different conclusion from that at which I had arrived. If
Vilain had been foolish enough to wind up his love-passages with
Mademoiselle de Mars by confiding to her his passion for the
Figeac, and even the place and time at which the latter was so
imprudent as to meet him, I could fancy the deserted mistress
laying this plot; and first placing the packet where we found it,
and then punishing her lover by laying the theft at his door.
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