hoping that one would appear; and when the mob learned the meaning of
her delay, they set up a cry of fiendish laughter, and with a blasphemy
that makes one shudder to think of, they pushed forward a boy, one of
those blood-stained _gamins_ of the streets, and made him gabble a mock
litany! Yes, it is true--a horrible mockery of our service, in the ears
and before the eyes of that dying saint.'

'When? in what year? in what place was that?' cried I, in an agony of
eagerness.

'I can give you both time and place, sir,' said the marquise, drawing
herself proudly up, for she construed my question into a doubt of her
veracity. 'It was in the year 1703, in the month of August; and as for
the place, it was one well seasoned to blood--the Place de Greve at
Paris.'

A fainting sickness came over me as I heard these words; the dreadful
truth flashed across me that the victim was the Marquise d'Estelles, and
the boy on whose infamy she dwelt so strongly, no other than myself.
For the moment, it was nothing to me that she had not identified me with
this atrocity; I felt no consolation in the thought that I was unknown
and unsuspected. The heavy weight of the indignant accusation almost
crushed me. Its falsehood I knew, and yet could I dare to disprove it?
Could I hazard the consequences of an avowal, which all my subsequent
pleadings could never obliterate. Even were my innocence established in
one point, what a position did it reduce me to in every other!

These struggles must have manifested themselves strongly in my looks,
for the marquise, with all her self-occupation, remarked how ill I
seemed. 'I see sir,' cried she, 'that all the ravages of war have not
steeled your heart against true piety; my tale has moved you strongly.'
I muttered something in concurrence, and she went on. 'Happily for you,
you were but a child when such scenes were happening. Not, indeed, that
childhood was always unstained in those days of blood; but you were, as
I understand, the son of a "Garde du Corps," one of those loyal men who
sealed their devotion with their life. Were you in Paris then?'

'Yes, madam,' said I briefly.

'With your mother, perhaps?'

'I was quite alone, madam--an orphan on both sides.'

'What was your mother's family name?'

Here was a puzzle; but at a hazard I resolved to claim her who should
sound best to the ears of La Marquise. 'La Lasterie, madam,' said I.

'La Lasterie de la Vignoble--a most distinguished hou