"And wasn't he at your chateau with these
very players? Judging from his usual stupid, silly air, I would not
have believed him capable of making such a clever mountebank, and such a
faithful gallant."
As he conversed with Yolande, the marquis was looking about the house,
of which he had a much better view than from his own place near the
stage, and his attention was caught and fixed by the masked lady,
whom he had not seen before, as his back was always turned to her box.
Although her head and figure were much enveloped and disguised in a
profusion of black laces, the attitude and general contour of this
mysterious beauty seemed strangely familiar to him, and there was
something about her that reminded him forcibly of the marquise, his own
wife. "Bah!" said he to himself, "how foolish I am; she must be all safe
at the Chateau de Bruyeres, where I left her." But at that very moment
he caught sight of a diamond ring--a large solitaire, peculiarly
set--sparkling on her finger, which was precisely like one that the
Marquise de Bruyeres always wore.
A little troubled by this strange coincidence, he took leave abruptly of
the fair Yolande and her devoted old uncle, and hastened to the masked
lady's box. But, prompt as his movements had been, he was too late--the
nest was empty--the bird had flown.
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