Albert hesitated a moment. "You may think my departure strange and foolish," said the young man; "you know not how a paragraph in a newspaper may exasperate. Read that," said he, "when I am gone, that you may not be witness of my anger."
While the count picked up the paper Albert put spurs to his horse, which, astonished that his rider should deem such a stimulus necessary, started with the rapidity of an arrow. The count watched him with a feeling of compassion, and when he had completely disappeared, read as follows:
Thus this terrible secret, which Beauchamp had so generously destroyed, appeared again as an armed phantom; and another paper, cruelly informed, had published, two days after Albert's departure for Normandy, the few lines which had almost distracted the unfortunate young man.
