At the same time I was receiving letters from my poor wife, and all coincided, in the terrible series, in a frightful concordance.

The anonymous letter told me: 'To-day they were together two hours and a quarter,' while Maud wrote: 'I could not go out to-day, as agreed upon, with Madame Steno, for she had a headache.' Then the portrait of Alba, of which they told me incidentally.

The anonymous letters detailed to me the events, the prolongation of sitting, while my wife wrote: 'We again went to see Alba's portrait yesterday.

The painter erased what he had done.' Finally it became impossible for me to endure it.

With their abominable minuteness of detail, the anonymous letters gave me even the address of their rendezvous! I set out.