The Indiscretion of the Duchess by Antonio Hope

I must confess at once that I might easily have displayed more acumen, and that there would have been nothing wonderful in my discerning or guessing the truth about Marie Delhasse's movements. Yet the truth never occurred to me, never so much as suggested itself in the shape of a possible explanation. I cannot quite tell why; perhaps it conflicted too strongly with the idea of her which possessed me; perhaps it was characteristic of a temperament so different from my own that I could not anticipate it. At any rate, be the reason what it may, I did not seriously doubt that Marie Delhasse had cut the cords which bound her by a hasty flight from Avranches; and my conviction was deepened by my knowledge that an evening train left for Paris just about half an hour after Marie, having played her trick on her mother and on the Duke of Saint-Maclou, had walked out of the hotel, no man and no woman hindering her.

Under these circumstances, my work -- imposed and voluntary alike -- was done; and the cheering influence of the dinner to which I sat down so awoke my mind to fresh agility that I found the task of disembarrassing myself of that old man of the sea -- the Cardinal's Necklace -- no longer so hopeless as it had appeared in the hungry disconsolate hour before my meal. Nay, I saw my way to performing, incidentally, a final service to Marie by creating in the mind of the duke such chagrin and anger as would, I hoped, disincline him from any pursuit of her. If I could, by one stroke, restore him his diamonds and convince him, not of Marie's virtue, but of her faithlessness, I trusted to be humbly instrumental in freeing her from his importunity, and of restoring the jewels to the duchess -- nay, of restoring to her also the undisturbed possession of her home and of the society of her husband. At this latter prospect I told myself that I ought to feel very satisfied, and rather to my surprise found myself feeling not very dissatisfied; for most unquestionably the duchess had treated me villainously and had entirely failed to appreciate me. My face still went hot to think of the glance she had given Marie Delhasse's maladroit ambassador.