With all celerity was I ushered into a small chamber, opening on the one side upon the common room, and being divided on the other by the thinnest of wooden partitions from the adjoining apartment.
Here, the landlord having left me, I disposed myself to wait, and here I did a thing I would not have believed myself capable of doing, a thing I cannot think of without blushing to this very day.

In short, I played the eavesdropper--I, Marcel Saint-Pol de Bardelys.

Yet, if you who read and are nice-minded, shudder at this confession, or, worse still, shrug your shoulders in contempt, with the reflection that such former conduct of mine as I have avowed had already partly disposed you against surprise at this I do but ask that you measure my sin by my temptation, and think honestly whether in my position you might not yourselves have fallen.

Aye--be you never so noble and high-principled--I make bold to say that you had done no less, for the voice that penetrated to my ears was that of Roxalanne de Lavedan.
"I sought an audience with the King," she was saying, "but I could not gain his presence.

They told me that he was holding no levees, and that he refused to see any one not introduced by one of those having the private entree." "And so," answered the voice of Chatellerault, in tones that were perfectly colourless, "you come to me that I may present you to his Majesty ?" "You have guessed it, Monsieur le Comte.