Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 63, No. 389, March 1848
The attention Schmidt drew upon himself by this incident, was sustained by subsequent peculiarities in his conduct. The captain of his troop wished to have him made a corporal; but he refused the grade, although he might be well assured it would lead to higher ones. He preferred serving as a private soldier, and did his duty admirably, but was more popular with his officers than with his comrades, on account of his reserved manner, and of the little disposition he showed to share the sports or revels of the latter. Before the enemy he was fearless almost to a fault, exposing his life for the mere pleasure, as it seemed, of doing so, whenever the opportunity offered. He did not cotton much, as the phrase goes, with any one, but in his more sociable moments, and when their squadrons happened to be together, he was more frequently seen with Heinzel than with any body else. In manner he was very mild and quiet, exceedingly silent, and would sometimes pass whole days without opening his lips, save to answer to his name at roll-call.
To return, however, to Master Heinzel. I was resolved to learn something of his history, and, by way of drawing him out, began to speak to him of his native country, generally the best topic to open a German's heart, and make him communicative. Heinzel gave into the snare, and gradually I brought him to talk of himself. I asked him if he had been a soldier in his own country – thinking it possible he might be a deserter, from some German service; but his reply was contradictory of this notion.
"All my service has been in Spain, sir," he said; "and it is not two years since I first put on a soldier's coat, although in one sense, I may say, I was born in the army. For I first saw light on the disastrous day of Wagram, and my father, an Austrian grenadier, was killed at the bridge of Znaym. My mother, a sutler, was wounded in the breast by a spent ball whilst supporting his head, and trying to recall the life that had fled for ever; and although she thought little of the hurt at the time, it occasioned her death a few months afterwards."
"A melancholy start in the world," I remarked. "The regiment should have adopted and made a soldier of the child born within sound of cannon, and deprived of both father and mother by the chances of war."
"Better for me if the regiment had, I dare say," replied Heinzel; "but somebody else adopted me, and by the time I was old enough to do something for myself, fighting was no longer in fashion. I might think myself lucky that I was not left to die by the road-side, for in those days soldiers' orphans were too plenty for one in a hundred to find a foster-father."
"And who acted as yours?"
"An elderly gentleman of Wurzburg, at whose door my mother, overcome by fatigue and sickness, one evening fell down. Incapacitated by ill-health from pursuing her former laborious and adventurous occupation, she had wandered that far on her way to Nassau, her native country. She never got there, but died at Wurzburg, and was buried at the charges of the excellent Ulrich Esch, who further smoothed her dying pillow by the promise that I should be cared for, and brought up as his child. Herr Esch had been a shopkeeper in Cologne, but having early amassed, by dint of industry and frugality, the moderate competency he coveted, he had retired from business, and settled down in a snug country-house in the suburbs of Wurzburg, where he fell in love and got married. Since then several years had elapsed, and the union, in other respects happy, had proved childless. It was a great vexation to the worthy man and to his meek sweet-tempered spouse, when they were finally compelled to admit the small probability of their ever being blessed with a family. Herr Esch tried to draw consolation from his pipe, his wife from her pet dogs and birds; but these were poor substitutes for the cheering presence of children, and more than once the pair had consulted together on the propriety of adopting a child. They still demurred, however, when my mother's arrival and subsequent death put an end to their indecision. The kind-hearted people received her into their house, and bestowed every care upon her, and, when she departed, they took me before the justice of peace, and formally adopted me as their child. For some months my situation was most enviable. True, that old Hannchen, the sour housekeeper, looked upon me with small favour, and was occasionally heard to mutter, when my presence gave her additional trouble, something about beggar's brats and foundlings. True also that Fido, the small white lapdog, viewed me with manifest jealousy, and that Mops, the big poodle, made felonious attempts to bite, which finally occasioned his banishment from the premises. I was too young to be sensible to these small outbreaks of envy, and my infancy glided happily away; when suddenly there was great jubilee in the house, and, after eight years of childless wedlock, Madame Esch presented her husband with a son. This event made a vast difference in my position and prospects, although I still had no reason to complain of my lot. My worthy foster-parents did their duty by me, and did not forget, in their gush of joy at the birth of a child to their old age, the claims of the orphan they had gathered up at their door. In due time I was sent to school, where, being extremely idle, I remained unusually late before I was held to have amassed a sufficient amount of learning to qualify me for a seat on a high stool in a Wurzburg counting-house. I was a desperately lazy dog, and a bit of a scapegrace, with a turn for making bad verses, and ridiculous ideas on the subject of liberty, both individual and national. My foster-father's intention was to establish me, after a certain period of probation, in a shop or small business of my own; but the accounts he got of me from my employers were so unsatisfactory, and one or two mad pranks I played caused so much scandal in the town, that he deferred the execution of his plan, and thinking that absence from home, and a strict taskmaster, might be beneficial, he started me off to Frankfort-on-the-Maine, where a clerk's place was ready for me in the office of the long-established and highly respectable firm of Schraube & Co."
Here Heinzel broke off the narrative strain into which he had insensibly fallen, and apologised for intruding upon me so commonplace a tale. But he had got into the vein, I saw, and was willing enough to go on; and, on my part, I was curious to hear his story out, although I had already assigned to it, in my mind, the not unnatural termination of flight from a severe employer, renunciation by the adoptive father, and consequent destitution and compulsory enlistment. I begged him to continue, and he did not need much pressing.
"Frankfort is a famous place for Jews," continued Heinzel, "and Jews are notoriously sharp men of business; but the entire synagogue might have been searched in vain for a more thorough Hebrew in character and practice than that very Christian merchant, Herr Johann Schraube. He was one of those persons who seem sent into the world for the express purpose of making themselves as disagreeable as possible. A little, bandy-legged, ill-made man, with small ferret's eyes, and a countenance expressive of unbounded obstinacy and self-conceit; he had a pleasant way of repeating his own words when he ought to have listened to the answer, was never known to smile except when he had made somebody miserable, or to grant a favour till he had surlily refused it at least half-a-dozen times. His way of speaking was like the snap of a dog. Every body about him hated and feared him; his wife and children, his servants, his clerks, and even his partner, a tall strapping fellow who could have crushed him with his foot like a weasel, but who, nevertheless, literally trembled in presence of the concentrated bile of his amiable associate. I anticipated a pleasant time of it under the rule of such a domestic tyrant, especially as it had been arranged that I was to live in the house. Accordingly, a bed-chamber was allotted to me. I took my meals, with some others of the clerks, at the lower end of the family dinner-table, and passed ten hours a-day in writing letters and making out accounts. My scanty moments of relaxation I was fain to pass either out of doors or reading in the counting-house; for although nominally treated as one of the family, I could see that my presence in the common sitting-room, was any thing but welcome to Schraube and his circle. Altogether I led a dog's life, and I make no doubt I should have deserted my blotting book and fled back to Wurzburg, had I not found one consolation amongst all these disagreeables. Herr Schraube had a daughter of the name of Jacqueline – a beautiful girl, with golden curls and laughing eyes, gay and lively, but coquettish and somewhat satirical. With this young lady I fell in love, and spoiled innumerable quires of post paper in scribbling bad poetry in praise of her charms. But it was long before I dared to offer her my rhymes; and, in the meantime, she had no suspicion of my flame. How could she possibly suspect that her father's new clerk, of whose existence she was scarcely conscious, save from seeing him twice or thrice a-day at the furthest extremity of the dining-table, would dare to lift his eyes to her with thoughts of love. She had no lack of more eligible adorers; and, although she encouraged none of them, there was one shambling lout of a fellow, with round shoulders and a sodden countenance, whom her father particularly favoured, because he was exceedingly rich, and whose addresses he insisted on her admitting. Like every body else, she stood in much awe of old Schraube; but her repugnance to this suitor gave her courage to resist his will, and, for some time, the matter remained in a sort of undecided state; stupid Gottlieb coming continually to the house, encouraged and made much of by the father, but snubbed and turned into ridicule by the vivacious and petulant daughter, both of whom, probably, trusted that time would change each other's determination.
"Such was the state of things when, one evening as I sat in the counting-house hard at work at an invoice, a servant came in and said that Miss Jacqueline wished to speak to me. A summons to appear at the Pope's footstool would not have surprised me more than this message from a young lad who had long occupied my thoughts, but had never seemed in the least to heed me. Since I had been in the house, we had not exchanged words half-a-dozen times, and what could be the reason of this sudden notice? Without waiting to reflect, however, I hurried to her presence. She was seated at her piano, with a quantity of music scattered about; and her first words dissipated the romantic dreams I had begun to indulge on my way from the counting-house to the drawing-room. She had heard I was clever with my pen, and she had a piece of music to copy. Would I oblige her by doing it? Although I had never attempted such a thing, I unhesitatingly accepted the task, overjoyed at what I flattered myself might lead to intimacy. I sat up all that night, labouring at the song, and after spoiling two or three copies, succeeded in producing one to my satisfaction. Jacqueline was delighted with it, – thanked me repeatedly, – spoke so kindly, and smiled so sweetly that my head was almost turned, and I ventured to kiss her hand. She seemed rather surprised and amused than angry, but took no particular notice, and dismissed me with another piece of music to copy. This was done with equal despatch and correctness, and procured me another interview with Jacqueline, and a third similar task. Thenceforward the supply of work was pretty regular, and took up all my leisure time, and often a good part of my nights. But in such service I was far from grudging toil, or lamenting loss of sleep. Nearly every day I found means of seeing Jacqueline, either to return music, to ask a question about an illegible bar, or on some similar pretext. She was too much accustomed to admiration not at once to detect my sentiments. Apparently they gave her no offence; at any rate she showed no marks of displeasure when, after a short time, I ventured to substitute, for the words of a song I copied, some couplets of my own which, although doubtless more fervent in style than meritorious as poetry, could not leave her in doubt of my feelings towards her. I even thought, upon our next meeting at the dinner-table, after she had received this effusion, that her cheek was tinged with a blush when I caught her bright blue eye. With such encouragement I continued to poetise at a furious rate, sometimes substituting my verses for those of songs, at others writing them out upon delicate pink paper, with a border of lyres and myrtles, and conveying them to her in the folds of the music. She never spoke to me of them, but neither did she return them; and I was satisfied with this passive acceptance of my homage. Thus we went on for some time, I sighing and she smiling; until at last I could no longer restrain my feelings, but fell at her feet and confessed my love. A trifling but significant circumstance impelled me to this decisive step. Going into the sitting-room one afternoon, I beheld her standing at the window, engaged in the childish occupation of breathing on the glass and scribbling with her finger upon the clouded surface. So absorbed was she in this pastime that I approached her closely before she seemed aware of my presence, and was able to read over her shoulder what she wrote upon the pane. To my inexpressible delight, I distinguished the initials of my name. Just then she turned her head, gave a faint coquettish scream, and hurriedly smeared the characters with her hand. My heart beat quick with joyful surprise; I was too agitated to speak, but, laying down the music I carried, I hurried to my apartment to meditate in solitude on what had passed. I beheld my dearest dreams approaching realisation. I could no longer doubt that Jacqueline loved me; and although I was but her father's clerk, and he was reputed very wealthy, yet she was one of many children – my kind foster parent had promised to establish me in business – and, that done, there would be no very great impropriety in my offering myself as Herr Schraube's son-in-law. Upon the strength of these reflections, the next time I found myself alone with Jacqueline, I made my declaration. Thrice bitter was the disenchantment of that moment. Her first words swept away my visions of happiness as summarily as her fingers had effaced the letters upon the tarnished glass. But the glass remained uninjured, whilst my heart was bruised and almost broken by the shock it now sustained. My avowal of love was received with affected surprise, and with cold and cutting scorn. In an instant the castle of cards, which for weeks and months I had built and decorated with flowers of love and fancy, fell with a crash, and left no trace of its existence save the desolation its ruin caused. I had been the victim of an arrant coquette, whose coquetry, however, I now believe, sprang rather from utter want of thought than innate badness of heart. Her arch looks, her friendly words, her wreathed smiles, the very initials on the window, were so many limed twigs, set for a silly bird. Jacqueline had all the while been acting. But what was comedy to her was deep tragedy to me. I fled from her presence, my heart full, my cheeks burning, my pulse throbbing with indignation. And as I meditated, in the silence of my chamber, upon my own folly and her cruel coquetry, I felt my fond love turn into furious hate, and I vowed to be revenged. How, I knew not, but my will was so strong that I was certain of finding a way. Unfortunately, an opportunity speedily offered itself.
"For some days I was stupefied by the severity of my disappointment. I went through my counting-house duties mechanically; wrote, moved, got up and lay down, with the dull regularity, almost with the unconsciousness, of an automaton. I avoided as much as possible the sight of Jacqueline, who, of course, took no notice of me, and studiously averted her eyes from me, as I thought, when we met at meals; perhaps some feeling of shame at the cruel part she had acted made her unwilling to encounter my gaze. My leisure time, although not very abundant, hung heavily upon my hands, now that I had no music to copy, no amorous sonnets to write. A fellow-clerk, observing my dulness and melancholy, frequently urged me to accompany him to a kind of club, held at a kneipe, or wine-house, where he was wont to pass his evenings. At last I suffered myself to be persuaded; and finding temporary oblivion of my misfortune in the fumes of canaster and Rhine wine, and in the boisterous mirth of a jovial noisy circle, I soon became a regular tavern-haunter; and, in order to pass part of the night, as well as the evening, over the bottle, I procured a key to the house-door, by means of which I was able to get in and out at hours that would have raised Herr Schraube's indignation to the very highest pitch, had he been aware of the practice.
"It chanced one night, or rather morning, as I ascended the steps, of mingled wood and brick, that led to the door of my employer's spacious but old-fashioned dwelling, that I dropped my key, and, owing to the extreme darkness, had difficulty in finding it. Whilst groping in the dusty corners of the stairs, my fingers suddenly encountered a small piece of paper protruding from a crack. I pulled it out; it was folded in the form of a note, and I took it up to my room. There was no address; but the contents did not leave me long in ignorance of the person for whom the epistle was intended. The first line contained the name of Jacqueline, which was repeated, coupled with innumerable tender epithets, in various parts of the billet-doux. It was signed by a certain Theodore, and contained the usual protestations of unbounded love and eternal fidelity, which, from time immemorial, lovers have made to their mistresses. Whoever the writer, he had evidently found favour with Jacqueline; for again and again he repeated how happy her love made him. Apparently, he was by no means so certain of the father's good-will, and had not yet ventured to approach him in the character of an aspirant to his daughter's hand; for he deplored the difficulties he foresaw in that quarter, and discussed the propriety of getting introduced to Herr Schraube, and seeking his consent. He begged Jacqueline to tell him when he might venture such a step. The letter did not refer to any previous ones, but seemed written in consequence of a verbal understanding; and the writer reminded his mistress of her promise to place her answers to his missives in the same place where she found these, twice in every week, upon appointed days, which were named.
"The perusal of this letter revived in my breast the desire of revenge which its possession gave me a prospect of gratifying. At that moment I would not have bartered the flimsy scrap of paper for the largest note ever issued from a bank. I did not, it is true, immediately see in what way its discovery was to serve my purpose, but that, somehow or other, it would do so, I instinctively felt. After mature consideration, I quietly descended the stairs, and restored the letter to the hiding-place whence I had taken it. That afternoon it had disappeared, and on the following day, which was one of those appointed, I withdrew from the same crevice Jacqueline's perfumed and tender reply to her beloved Theodore. It breathed the warmest attachment. The coquette, who had trifled so cruelly with my feelings, was in her turn caught in Cupid's toils; and I might have deemed her sufficiently chastised for her treatment of me by the anxieties and difficulties with which her love was environed. She wrote to her admirer, that he must not yet think of speaking to her father, or even of getting introduced to him; for that, in the first place, Herr Schraube had officers in peculiar aversion, and would not tolerate them in his house; and, secondly, it had long been his intention to marry her to Gottlieb Loffel, who was rich, ugly, and stupid, and whom she could not bear. She bid Theodore be patient, and of good courage; for that she would be true to him till death, and never marry the odious suitor they tried to force upon her, but would do all in her power to change her father's purpose, and incline him favourably to the man of her choice. Whilst deploring old Schraube's cold-blooded and obstinate character, she still was sanguine that in the main he desired her happiness, and would not destroy it for ever by uniting her to a man she detested, and by severing her from him with whom alone would life be worth having, from her first and only love, her dearest Theodore, &c., &c. And so forth, with renewed vows of unfailing affection. This was a highly important letter, as letting me further into the secrets of the lovers. So the lucky Theodore, who had so fascinated Jacqueline, was an officer. That the old gentleman hated military men, I was already aware; and it was no news to me that his daughter entertained a similar feeling towards the booby Loffel. I had long since discovered this, although fear of her father induced Jacqueline to treat her unwelcome suitor with much more urbanity and consideration than she would otherwise have shown him.
"The next day the lady's letter, which I carefully put back in the nook of the steps, was gone, and the following Saturday brought another tender epistle from the gentle Theodore, who this time, however, was any thing but gentle; for he vowed implacable hatred to his obnoxious rival, and devoted him to destruction if he persisted in his persecution of Jacqueline. Then there were fresh protestations of love, eternal fidelity, and the like, but nothing new of great importance. The correspondence continued in pretty much the same strain for several weeks, during which I regularly read the letters, and returned them to the clandestine post-office. At last I grew weary of the thing, and thought of putting a stop to it, but could not hit upon a way of doing so, and at the same time of sufficiently revenging myself, unless by a communication to Herr Schraube, which plan did not altogether satisfy me. Whilst I thus hesitated, Jacqueline, in one of her letters, after detailing, for her lover's amusement, some awkward absurdities of which Loffel had been guilty, made mention of me.
"'I never told you,' she wrote, 'of the presumption of one of my father's clerks; a raw-boned monster, with a face like a Calmuck, who, because he writes bad verses, and is here as a sort of gentleman-volunteer, thought himself permitted to make me, his master's daughter, the object of his particular regards. I must confess, that when I perceived him smitten, I was wicked enough to amuse myself a little at his expense, occasionally bestowing a word or smile which raised him to the seventh heaven, and were sure to produce, within the twenty-four hours, a string of limping couplets, intended to praise my beauty and express his adoration, but, in reality, as deficient in meaning as they were faulty in metre. At last, one day, towards the commencement of my acquaintance with you, dearest Theodore, he detected me childishly engaged in writing your beloved initials in my breath upon the window. His initials happen to be the same as yours, (thank heaven, it is the only point of resemblance between you,) and it afterwards occurred to me he was perhaps misled by the coincidence. In no other way, at least, could I explain the fellow's assurance, when, two days afterwards, he plumped himself down upon his knees, and, sighing like the bellows of a forge, declared himself determined to adore me till the last day of his life, or some still more remote period. You may imagine my answer. I promise you he left off pestering me with bad rhymes; and from that day has scarcely dared raise his eyes higher than my shoe-tie.'
"This last assertion was false. My love and rejection were no cause for shame; but she might well blush for her coquetry, of which I could not acquit her, even now the incident of the window was explained. Her injurious and satirical observations deeply wounded my self-love. I read and re-read the offensive paragraph, till every syllable was imprinted on my memory. Each fresh perusal increased my anger; and at last, my invention stimulated by fury, I devised a scheme which would afford me, I was sure, ample scope for vengeance on Jacqueline and her minion. A very skilful penman, I possessed great facility in imitating all manner of writing, and had often idly exercised myself in that dangerous art. I was quite sure that, with a model beside me, I should not have the slightest difficulty in counterfeiting the handwriting both of Jacqueline and Theodore; who, moreover, unsuspicious of deceit, would be unlikely to notice any slight differences. I resolved in future to carry on their correspondence myself, suppressing the real letters, and substituting false ones of a tenor conformable to my object. I calculated on thus obtaining both amusement and revenge, and, enchanted with the ingenuity of my base project, I at once proceeded to its execution. It was fully successful; but the consequences were terrible, far exceeding any thing I had anticipated."
I could not restrain an exclamation of indignation and disgust at the disclosure of this vindictive and abominable scheme. Heinzel – who told his tale, I must do him the justice to say, not vauntingly, but rather in a tone of humility and shame which I have perhaps hardly rendered in committing the narrative to paper – Heinzel easily conjectured the feeling that prompted my indignant gesture and inarticulate ejaculation. He looked at me timidly and deprecatingly.
"I was a fiend, sir – a devil; I deserved hanging or worse. My only excuse, a very poor one, is the violent jealousy, the mad anger that possessed me – the profound conviction that Jacqueline had intentionally trifled with my heart's best feelings. Upon this conviction, I brooded till my blood turned to gall, and every kind of revenge, however criminal, to me appeared justifiable."
He paused, leaned his head mournfully upon his hand, and seemed indisposed to proceed.
"It is not for me to judge you, Heinzel," said I. "There is One above us all who will do that, and to whom penitence is an acceptable offering. Let me hear the end of your story."
"You shall, sir. You are the first to whom I ever told it, and I scarce know how I came to this confidence. But it does me good to unburden my conscience, though my cheek burns as I avow my infamy."
His voice faltered, and again he was silent. Respecting the unaffected emotion of the repentant sinner, I did not again urge him to proceed; but presently he recommenced, of his own accord, in a sad but steady voice, as if he had made up his mind to drink to the dregs the self-prescribed cup of humiliation.
"According to my determination, I kept back Jacqueline's next letter, and replaced it by one of my own, whose writing the most expert judge would have had difficulty in distinguishing from hers. In this supposititious epistle I gave Theodore a small ray of hope. The father, Jacqueline wrote, (or rather I wrote it for her,) was kinder to her than formerly, and had almost ceased to speak of her union with Loffel. Her hopes revived, and she thought things might still go happily, and Theodore become her husband. To obviate all probability of my manœuvres being discovered, I strictly enjoined the favoured officer to abstain in future from speaking to her (as I knew from previous letters he was in the habit of doing) on the promenade, or in other public places. I gave as a reason, that those interviews, although brief and guarded, had occasioned gossip, and that, should they come to her father's ears, they would materially impede, perhaps altogether prevent, the success of her efforts to get rid of Loffel. Her lover was to be kept informed of the progress she made in bringing Herr Schraube to her views, and to receive instant intimation when the propitious moment arrived for presenting himself in the character of a suitor. So far so good. This letter elicited a joyful answer from Theodore, who swore by all that was sacred to be quiet, and take patience, and wait her instructions. I suppressed this, replacing it by one conformable to my arrangements. And now, in several following letters, I encouraged the officer, gradually raising his hopes higher and higher. At last I wrote to him that the day approached when he need no longer sigh in secret, but declare his love before the whole world, and especially before the hitherto intractable old merchant. His replies expressed unbounded delight and happiness, and eternal gratitude to the constant mistress who thus ably surmounted difficulties. But in the meanwhile things progressed precisely in the contrary direction. Herr Schraube, more than ever prepossessed in favour of Loffel's well-stored coffers, was deaf to his daughter's arguments, and insisted upon her marrying him. In one of Jacqueline's letters, kept back by me, she mournfully informed her lover of her father's irrevocable determination, adding that she would only yield to downright force, and would never cease to cherish in her heart the ill-fated love she had vowed to her Theodore. Then – and upon this, in my vindictive wickedness, I prided myself as a masterly stratagem – I caused the correspondence on the part of the officer to become gradually colder and more constrained, until at last his letters assumed a tone of ill-concealed indifference, and finally, some weeks before the day appointed for the wedding, ceased altogether. Of course I never allowed him to get possession of the poor girl's mournful and heartbroken replies, wherein she at last declared that, since Theodore deserted her, she would sacrifice herself like a lamb, obey her father, and marry Loffel. Life, she said, had no longer any charm for her: her hopes deceived, her affections blighted, the man she had so dearly loved faithless to his vows, she abandoned the idea of happiness in this world, and resigned herself to the lot imposed by a parent's will. Instead of these notes of lamentation, I sent to Theodore words of love and hope, and anticipations of approaching happiness. And at last, to cut short this long and shameful story, I wrote a concluding letter in Jacqueline's name, desiring him to present himself on the following Sunday at her father's house, and demand her hand in marriage. She had smoothed all difficulties, the unacceptable wooer had been dismissed, her father had relented, and was disposed to give the officer a favourable reception. Theodore's reply was incoherent with joy. But the Sunday, as I well knew, was the day fixed for Jacqueline's marriage with Gottlieb Loffel. The climax approached, and, like a villain as I was, I gloated in anticipation over my long-prepared revenge. The day came; the house was decorated, the guests appeared. The bride's eyes were red with weeping, her face was as white as her dress; repugnance and despair were written upon her features. The priest arrived, the ceremony was performed, the tears coursing the while over Jacqueline's wan face; when, just at its close, the jingle of spurs was heard upon the stairs, and Theodore, in the full-dress uniform of a Prussian officer, his face beaming with hope and love, entered the apartment. The bride fell senseless to the ground; the officer, upon learning what had just taken place, turned as pale as his unhappy mistress, and rushed down stairs. Before Jacqueline regained consciousness, I had thrown into the post-office a packet to her address, containing the intercepted letters. It was my wedding present to the wife of Gottlieb Loffel."