mplimented her, besides bringing her a message that the emperor
desired her to dance with him.

"I am very sorry," she said, with a quiver of the lips, "but I really
cannot dance. Be kind enough to ask the emperor to excuse me."

But at that very moment she felt some strange magnetic influence; and
without looking up she could feel that Napoleon himself was standing by
her as she sat with blanched face and downcast eyes, not daring to look
up at him.

"White upon white is a mistake, madam," said the emperor, in his
gentlest tones. Then, stooping low, he whispered, "I had expected a far
different reception."

She neither smiled nor met his eyes. He stood there for a moment and
then passed on, leaving her to return to her home with a heavy heart.
The young countess felt that she had acted wrongly, and yet there was
an instinct--an instinct that she could not conquer.

In the gray of the morning, while she was still tossing feverishly, her
maid knocked at the door and brought her a hastily scribbled note. It
ran as follows:

I saw none but you, I admired none but you; I desire only you. Answer
at once, and calm the impatient ardor of--N.

These passionate words burned from her eyes the veil that had hidden
the truth from her. What before had been mere blind instinct became an
actual verity. Why had she at first rushed forth into the very streets
to hail the possible deliverer of her country, and then why had she
shrunk from him when he sought to honor her! It was all clear enough
now. This bedside missive meant that he had intended her dishonor and
that he had looked upon her simply as a possible mistress.

At once she crushed the note angrily in her hand.

"There is no answer at all," said she, bursting into bitter tears at
the very thought that he should dare to treat her in this way.

But on the following morning when she awoke her maid was standing
beside her with a second letter from Napoleon. She refused to open it
and placed it in a packet with the first letter, and ordered that both
of them should be returned to the emperor.

She shrank from speaking to her husband of what had happened, and there
was no one else in whom she dared confide. All through that day there
came hundreds of visitors, either of princely rank or men who had won
fame by their gallantry and courage. They all begged to see her, but to
them all she sent one answer--that she was ill and could see no one.

After a time her husband bur