'Dear Emily , 
‘I am very uneasy on your account. 
Your husband knows that you were in the 
park with mine. He is jealous, and I must 
confess that I was myself not without suspi¬ 
cions. But now, since I have spoken to 
my husband, I am convinced of your in¬ 
nocence and his. I know how accident 
has played with you, and am even inform- 
ed by your cousin how heartily you desired 
to get rid of his company. I entreat you 
to be perfectly candid to the count, as my 
husband has been to me. It is the only 
way to prevent ill consequences. 
Yours, ‘Laura.’ 
P. S. To avoid the appearance of any 
collusion, the bearer of this is directed to 
say, that he has brought it from your mil¬ 
liner.' 
This was the seventh apparently innocent 
lie. to which Laura was induced by the 
consideration that the count might inter¬ 
cept her note, and then put Emily’s frank¬ 
ness to the test, without mentioning any 
thing of its contents. Emily had mean¬ 
while reached her home, and learned, with 
consternation, that her husband returned 
in the evening, and had waited for her all 
night. She perceived at the first glance 
the disagreeable nature of her situation. 
‘And where is he now?’ cried she hastily. 
‘At the coffee-house close by,’ was the reply. 
Glad to have gained a few moments respite, 
she strove to muster all her courage; but 
before she had half accomplished her pur¬ 
pose the count entered. At the first look 
he imagined that he could read his wife’s 
guilt in her sudden change of colour. His 
fury was ready to break forth; but with 
great exertion he repressed it, and with 
dissembled serenity inquired how and 
where she had spent the night. ‘At cap¬ 
tain B.’s’ said Emily stammering; ‘he was 
upon guard—Laura wished me to keep her 
company—the time passed away in reading 
an interesting book till it was much later 
than we thought.—The captain returned— 
and would have accompanied me home— 
but considering it unbecoming, I alighted 
at my cousin’s.’ Here she broke off, and 
was silent. ‘Then you are just come from 
your cousin’s?’ said the count, looking 
sternly at her. 
What was Emily to reply? She had 
stopped in her narrative; but why did she 
stop?—The confession of the walk would 
now come too late—the count might imagine 
that it was extorted by fear—he might won¬ 
der why she had suppressed this accident, 
which perhaps in his eyes might be far from 
seeming accidental—besides, what risk did 
she run if she concealed from him this trifle? 
He had been all the morning at the coffee¬ 
house, and of course could not know any 
thing about it—and if she lost no time in 
warning her cousin, that they might be 
both in one story, she might thus avoid a 
scene of the most disagreeable kind. All 
these reflections, which flashed across her 
mind with the rapidity of lightning, induced 
her to tell the eighth lie, and to answer the 
count’s question—whether she was just 
come from her cousin’s—in the affirmative. 
But her Yes was brought out with such 
hesitation, it so lingered half pronounced 
upon her lips, and her burning cheek so 
plainly said, No —that the count considered 
the infidelity of his wife as fully proved. 
The captain had concealed from him the 
very same point—and what was more nat¬ 
ural than to attribute the circumstance to 
a concerted arrangement. Having eyed 
Emily for a moment with a look of supreme 
contempt, he rushed out of the room. At 
the door he met a boy bringing Laura’s 
note, and angrily inquired his business. 
‘Here is a note for the countess,’ said the 
boy. ‘From whom?’ ‘From her milliner.’ 
‘Give it to me. She has something else to 
do just now than to think of caps and rib¬ 
bons.’ 
With these words he snatched the note 
out of the boy’s hand, doubled it up, and 
put it unopened into his pocket. He then 
hurried away like a maniac, and proceeded 
straight to the captain’s where he found 
nobody at home. He took a card, upon 
which he wrote these words:—‘Count S- 
expects captain B-at the Golden Lion 
inn, and begs him not to forget his sword.’ 
—The Golden Lion was but a few paces 
from the captain’s residence. Thither the 
count repaired, desired to be shown into a 
back room, and ordered a bottle of wine. 
In about half an hour he rang for a second 
bottle. It was brought him. The people 
