brothers
the convicts wear on their shoulders. The pain is a mere trifle, but I
feared a nervous crisis of some kind, of resistance----"

"Resistance?" she cried, clapping her hands for joy. "Oh no, no! I would
have the whole world here to see. Ah, my Armand, brand her quickly,
this creature of yours; brand her with your mark as a poor little trifle
belonging to you. You asked for pledges of my love; here they are all in
one. Ah! for me there is nothing but mercy and forgiveness and eternal
happiness in this revenge of yours. When you have marked this woman with
your mark, when you set your crimson brand on her, your slave in soul,
you can never afterwards abandon her, you will be mine for evermore?
When you cut me off from my kind, you make yourself responsible for my
happiness, or you prove yourself base; and I know that you are noble and
great! Why, when a woman loves, the brand of love is burnt into her
soul by her own will.--Come in, gentlemen! come in and brand her,
this Duchesse de Langeais. She is M. de Montriveau's forever! Ah! come
quickly, all of you, my forehead burns hotter than your fire!"

Armand turned his head sharply away lest he should see the Duchess
kneeling, quivering with the throbbings of her heart. He said some word,
and his three friends vanished.

The women of Paris salons know how one mirror reflects another. The
Duchess, with every motive for reading the depths of Armand's heart, was
all eyes; and Armand, all unsuspicious of the mirror, brushed away two
tears as they fell. Her whole future lay in those two tears. When he
turned round again to help her to rise, she was standing before him,
sure of love. Her pulses must have throbbed fast when he spoke with the
firmness she had known so well how to use of old while she played with
him.

"I spare you, madame. All that has taken place shall be as if it had
never been, you may believe me. But now, let us bid each other goodbye.
I like to think that you were sincere in your coquetries on your sofa,
sincere again in this outpouring of your heart. Good-bye. I feel that
there is no faith in you left in me. You would torment me again; you
would always be the Duchess, and----But there, good-bye, we shall never
understand each other.

"Now, what do you wish?" he continued, taking the tone of a master of
the ceremonies--"to return home, or to go back to Mme de Serizy's
ball? I have done all in my power to prevent any scandal. Neither your
servants