have given me false hopes"--

"You will fight me," answered Ronald, laughing. "Of course that's all a
friend gets for trying to be of service."

"Go, Maurice," said Mrs. Walton, "and bring us the happy news that
Ronald and his mother have not caused you fresh suffering."

"You said you had not a _doubt_," cried Maurice, trembling at the bare
suggestion.

"And I have not. Go!"

CHAPTER LII.

A LOVER'S SNARE.

Maurice was on his way to Madeleine's. Not for years, not since the day
when he breathed his love in the old Chateau de Gramont, had his heart
throbbed with such rapturous pulsations as now; not since that hour had
the world looked so paradisiacal,--life so full of enchantment to his
eyes. As he reached her door and ascended the steps, his emotions were
overpowering. A few moments more, and the heavenly dream would become a
glorious, life-brightening reality, or would melt away, a delusive
mirage in the desert of his existence, leaving his pathway a blanker
wilderness than ever.

He was too much at home to require the ceremony of announcement, and
sought Madeleine in her boudoir. She was not there. She was receiving
visitors in the drawing-room. Maurice sat down to await her coming; but
his impatience made him too restless for inaction, and he entered the
_salon_.

Madeleine's guests were Madame de Fleury and Mrs. Gilmer,--an accidental
and not very welcome encounter of the fashionable belligerents; though
since Mrs. Gilmer had received the much-desired invitation to Madame de
Fleury's ball, she had affected to lay down her arms, and Madame de
Fleury pretended to do the same.

Madeleine was listening with patient courtesy to the meaningless
nothings of the one lady, and the stereotyped insipidity of the other.
Madame de Fleury was tortured by a desire to consult her hostess
concerning a fancy ball-dress which at that moment filled her thoughts;
but Madeleine's manner was so thoroughly that of an equal who
entertained no doubts of her own position,--the vocation of
"Mademoiselle Melanie" was so completely laid aside,--that Madame de
Fleury, with all her tact and world-knowledge, could not plan any mode
of introducing the fascinating subject of "_chiffons_."

The marchioness greeted Maurice with enthusiastic cordiality. It struck
her, on seeing him, that she might broach the desired topic through his
aid; and she said, with the most charmingly innocent air, as though the
thought had just occurre