htly esteemed by De Secqville, _I_ would
rather lose my last drop of blood than reveal to a living mortal. I am
secrecy itself. Judge what I have endured. I have striven--how vainly my
own heart tells me--to hide the sentiments of my soul from you, madame.
I could see with comparative indifference the happiness of that rival
whom the forms of law, and not the preference of the heart, had
elevated; but judge how I could endure the fortune of an unworthy and
faithless competitor. Imagine, if you can, my despair. Compassionate, I
conjure you, my misery, and with one relenting word or look of pity,
raise me from the abyss, and see at your feet the happiest, as he is the
most devoted, of mortals."

At the same moment Blassemare attempted to take Lucille's hand; it was,
however, instantly withdrawn, and the back of it, instead, struck him in
the face, with all the force of enraged and insulted pride.

"How dare you, sirrah, hold such language to me--how _dare_ you? Another
word, and I denounce you to my husband--ay, sir, _I_--to Monsieur Le
Prun. I defy you."

Blassemare had started to his feet, very much astonished; his cheek
tingling, his self-love stung to the quick. But he was too experienced
in such affairs to indulge any tragical emotions on the occasion. He
stared at her for a minute, with an expression of absurd bewilderment.
There was no very graceful _exit_ from the undignified predicament to
which he had, like a simpleton, reduced himself. Recovering his
self-possession, however, he broke into a cold laugh, and said--

"Madame, I have misunderstood you with a vengeance; I pray you believe
that you have misunderstood _me_. We now, however, thoroughly understand
one another. I keep your little secret on condition that you keep mine."

Lucille deigned no answer; but the compact had, it seemed, been silently
ratified by her, for Le Prun and Blassemare continued to be the best
friends imaginable.

Blassemare was not vindictive, but he _was_ exquisitely vain. He had a
good-humored turn for mischief, too; and, notwithstanding the repulse he
had experienced, or perhaps, such is human perversity--_in consequence_
of it--he was more than ever resolved to pursue his guilty designs upon
the heart of Madame Le Prun.

His hands were, therefore, tolerably full; for he had not only this
little affair to attend to, but to exercise his vigilance to prevent De
Secqville's hearing of his breach of faith, and at the same time to