Who was she?
was she old or young?
And in which relation did she stand to Monsieur le Baron--that of wife, of sister, or of daughter?
And from some equally inexplicable cause Monsieur the Viscount determined in his own mind that it was the latter.

To make assurance doubly sure, however, he laid a trap to discover the real state of the case.

He wrote a letter of thanks and sympathy, expressed with all the delicate chivalrous politeness of a nobleman of the old _regime_, and addressed it to _Madame la Baronne_.
The plan succeeded.

The next note he received contained these sentences:--"_I am not the Baroness.

Madame my mother is, alas! dead.
I and my father are alone.