The next day, Lothien de Brie was writing diplomatic dispatches concerning Saroumand's tobacco trade, when a carriage pulled in outside his office, and an elegantly veiled lady dismounted and rang the doorbell.
"Oh Lothien! Oh my friend!" she cried.
"Eh bien, what is the matter, chère amie?" asked he.
"Lothien, a great event!" said the lady. "M. de Sacqueville-Danglars left last night."
"Where did he go?"
"I do not know. He has gone, never to return. Only the banknotes will remember him: High he stacked us, long he counted us, much interest he charged for us; but he is gone. He fled the creditors long ago." And the baroness de Sacqueville-Danglars drew from her pocket an unsealed letter, and handed it to De Brie, who read it aloud:
"Madame and very faithful wife." (The baroness blushed.)
"When you receive this letter, you will no longer have a husband! Oh! Do not be so warmly alarmed; you will have no husband in the same sense that you have no daughter, as I have been expelled from my domicile and my company has been taken over by Luigi Vanya and Co., Bandits. Who knows? Perhaps the chief can be persuaded to marry you.
