ionately, "you are in my arms at last--you are here! Duroc, just
look at this wonderful page. Come here, and look at the angel I
slandered just now!"

But Duroc did not appear. He preferred to move quietly out of the room
and to lock the door after him. Napoleon, therefore, was alone with his
mistress, and thanked Duroc in his heart for this discretion. He clasped
the weeping and blushing lady in his arms, and tried with gentle force
to remove her hands, in which she had buried her face. "Mary," he asked,
in a tone of suppliant tenderness, "Mary, you weep, and yet you say you
love me?"

"Yes, I do love you," she exclaimed, sinking on her knees. "I love you
intensely! Ah, have mercy on me! Do not condemn me because I come hither
in spite of my conscience and my honor! Napoleon, I have no longer any
thing on earth but you! I have no longer a country, a family, a name! I
gave up every thing for you--my life, my honor, my happiness, are yours!
Remember it, and do not despise me!"

He raised her from her knees and pressed a kiss on her quivering lips.
"Mary," he said, "this kiss shall have the same effect upon you as of
old the gift of knighthood had on the warrior--it will impart to you a
higher and more sacred life, and confer the highest honor on you!
Henceforth you are mine, and shall be as immortal as myself; and when
posterity mentions the name of the Emperor Napoleon, it shall at the
same time remember his beautiful mistress, and repeat the name of Mary
Walewska together with that of Josephine!"

"Oh," murmured Mary, "you mention the noble and generous Empress
Josephine, whom I worship, and against whom I am committing a crime! May
fate enable me to atone for my guilt one day by sacrificing my life for
you, and proving to you and to the world that I loved you truly and
faithfully."

"No, you shall live--live for me," said Napoleon, ardently; "do not
complain any more, Mary; dry your beautiful eyes. Come, sit down with me
and tell me how it happened that you conquered your heart, and why I see
you in this disguise?" He drew her to the divan and wound his arm around
her waist. She laid her head on his shoulder, and gazed up to him with
dreamy eyes.

"How it happened?" she asked. "I cannot find words to tell you. I
reenacted the part of Penelope. Every night I tried to fasten a coat of
mail around my heart--to protect it as with a net-work of virtue and
duty. But your letters were the wooers that destroyed in the