THE REVELATION.


The fatal Thursday had passed, Wednesday had come, yet Leonore had received
no tidings from her father. For three days she had not seen him, had had no
message from him.

But it was not this alone that disturbed and tortured Leonore. She had also
had no news from Kolbielsky, though the week which he had named as the
necessary duration of their parting had expired the day before. He had
said:

"My week of exile will begin from this hour, and the first festival will be
when I again clasp you in my arms."

This week had expired yesterday, and Kolbielsky had not come to clasp his
loved one in his arms again. She had expected him all through the day, all
through the night, and the cause of her present deep anxiety was not
solicitude about her father, the desire to learn the result of the
conspiracy discovered; no, it was only the longing for _him_, the terrible
dread that some accident might have befallen Kolbielsky.

Why did he not come, since he had so positively promised to return at the
end of a week? Was it really only a coincidence that the day which he had
fixed for his return was the selfsame one on which the conspiracy formed by
Napoleon's foes was to break forth?

What if he had had a share in the conspiracy? If he had deceived her,
if--But no, no, that was wholly impossible--that could not be! She knew the