him.

"Intended for me!" said Le Prun, with an ugly sneer. "Well, he can't now
put his daughter on her guard, or inflame her with the magnificent
spirit of the beggarly Charrebourgs."

And so saying, he surrendered the chamber to the dead Visconte and his
canine watcher.

XII.--ISOLATION.

Blassemare kept his counsel and his word. He dropped no hint to Le Prun
of his interview with the Marquis de Secqville. His own vanity was at
once mortified and excited by the discovery he had made. He was resolved
to obliterate the disgrace of having been duped, by the reality of his
meditated triumph. Love and war have much in common, a truth perhaps
embodied in the allegoric loves of Mars and Venus. Certain, at least, it
is, that in each pursuit all authorities agree that every stratagem is
fair. Blassemare was not the man to rob this canon of its force by any
morbid scruples of conscience; and having the courage of a lion,
associated with some of the vulpine attributes, and a certain prankish
love of mischief, he was tolerably qualified by nature for the
enterprises of rivalry and intrigue.

Le Prun brooded savagely over his suspected wrongs. He awaited with
affected contempt, but a real and malignant anxiety, the verdict of
Blassemare, who insisted upon deferring his interview with Madame Le
Prun until some weeks had passed over the grave of that "high and
puissant signer, the Visconte de Charrebourg."

It was nearly a month after the death of that old gentleman, when
Blassemare, happening to meet Madame Le Prun as she walked upon one of
the terraces, dressed in so exquisite a suit of mourning, and looking
altogether so irresistibly handsome, that, for the life of him, he could
not forbear saluting, approaching, and addressing her. He was affably
received, and the conversation, at first slight and indifferent, turned
gradually, without premeditation on his part, but, as it were, by a sort
of irresistible fatality, into that sombre and troubled channel whither,
sooner or later, though not exactly then, he had determined to direct
it.

"Monsieur Le Prun is unaccountably out of spirits, madame--I should say
morose, ill-tempered. I almost fear to approach him."

"Is there any thing to surprise one in that?"

"Why, no, considering his provocations."

"Provocations! what do you mean, sir?"

"Madame must pardon me. I happen to be in possession of some secrets."

There was a short pause, during which Madame Le Prun's co