Now “Elsa” (and I believe that I have not mentioned the fact before—an evidence, if any were needed, of my discretion) was the Christian name of the Duchess of Saint-Maclou. Picking up her dropped handkerchief as we rambled through the woods, I had seen the word delicately embroidered thereon, and I had not forgotten this chance information. But why—let those learned in the ways of women answer if they can—why, first, did she write at all? Why, secondly, did she tell me what had been entirely obvious from her demeanor? Why, thirdly, did she choose to affix to the document which put an end to our friendship a name which that friendship had never progressed far enough to justify me in employing? To none of these pertinent queries could I give a satisfactory reply. Yet, somehow, that “Elsa” standing alone, shorn of all aristocratic trappings, had a strange attraction for me, and carried with it a pleasure that the uncomplimentary tenor of the rest of the document did not entirely obliterate. “Elsa” wished never to see me again: that was bad; but it was “Elsa” who was so wicked as to wish that: that was good. And by a curious freak of the mind it occurred to me as a hardship that I had not received so much as a note of one line from—“Marie.”
“Nonsense!” said I aloud and peevishly; and I thrust the letter into my pocket, cheek by jowl with the Cardinal’s Necklace. And being thus vividly reminded of the presence of that undesired treasure, I became clearly resolved
