undismissed (doubtless in
resentment of fancied wrongs), but had taken with her the letter that
was to have been finished in readiness for the postman's call that
evening on his way to Caen. The contretemps was absolutely too much for
the sensitive nerves of la belle Adrienne, agitated as they had been
during the day by a communication made to her parents, and through them
"to his adorable cousin," by the Marquis d'Arval, that his contract of
marriage with a rich and beautiful heiress of his own province was on
the point of signature.

"Le perfide!" was the smothered ejaculation of his fair friend on
receiving this gratifying intelligence from her dejected parents, thus
compelled to relinquish their last feeble hope of seeing their darling
united to the husband of their choice. To the darling herself the new
return of Walter became suddenly an object of tender interest. Nothing
could be so natural as her immediate anxiety to express this impatience
in a reply to his last letter, and nothing could be more natural than
that she should fall into a paroxysm of nervous irritation at the
frustration of this amiable design, by the daring desertion of her
charge-d'affaires. But she was too proud to send for her, or to her: it
would look like acknowledgment of error. She would "die first," and "the
little impertinent would return of her own accord, humble enough, no
doubt, and she _should_ be humbled." But for the next two days nothing
was heard or seen of "the little impertinent" at the Chateau de St
Hilaire. On the third, still no sign of her repentance, by reappearance,
word, or token. On the fourth, Adrienne's resolution could hold out
against her necessities no longer, and she was on the point of going
herself in quest of the guilty Madelaine, when she learned the
astounding tidings that Walter had been five days returned to Caen, and
on that very morning when the news first reached her,----

But Walter's proceedings must be briefly related more veraciously than
by the blundering tongue of common rumour, which reported them to
Adrienne. He had returned to Caen, and to the hospitable home of his
English friends, to whose ear, of course, he confided his tale of
disappointed hopes. But, as it should seem by the mirthful bearing of
the small party assembled that night round the supper-table after his
affecting disclosure, not only had it failed in exciting sympathy for
the abused lover, but he himself, by some unaccountable ca