CHAPTER VIII.
"I will lay any wager you like," said Fritz, when we had come to the end of the letter, "that the wretch who has written this is a woman." "What makes you think so ?" "Because all the false reports about poor Madame Fontaine, when I was at Wurzburg, were traced to women.

They envy and hate Minna's mother.

She is superior to them in everything; handsome, distinguished, dresses to perfection, possesses all the accomplishments--a star, I tell you, a brilliant star among a set of dowdy domestic drudges.

Isn't it infamous, without an atom of evidence against her, to take it for granted that she is guilty?
False to her dead husband's confidence in her, a breaker of seals, a stealer of poisons--what an accusation against a defenseless woman! Oh, my poor dear Minna! how she must feel it; she doesn't possess her mother's strength of mind.

I shall fly to Wurzburg to comfort her.