ist, his eye flashed more and more, and everything announced
that Monsieur Phoebus was on the verge of one of those moments when
Jupiter himself commits so many follies that Homer is obliged to summon
a cloud to his rescue.

But Dom Claude saw everything. The door was made of thoroughly rotten
cask staves, which left large apertures for the passage of his hawklike
gaze. This brown-skinned, broad-shouldered priest, hitherto condemned to
the austere virginity of the cloister, was quivering and boiling in the
presence of this night scene of love and voluptuousness. This young
and beautiful girl given over in disarray to the ardent young man, made
melted lead flow in his-veins; his eyes darted with sensual jealousy
beneath all those loosened pins. Any one who could, at that moment, have
seen the face of the unhappy man glued to the wormeaten bars, would have
thought that he beheld the face of a tiger glaring from the depths of
a cage at some jackal devouring a gazelle. His eye shone like a candle
through the cracks of the door.

All at once, Phoebus, with a rapid gesture, removed the gypsy's
gorgerette. The poor child, who had remained pale and dreamy, awoke
with a start; she recoiled hastily from the enterprising officer, and,
casting a glance at her bare neck and shoulders, red, confused, mute
with shame, she crossed her two beautiful arms on her breast to conceal
it. Had it not been for the flame which burned in her cheeks, at the
sight of her so silent and motionless, one would have declared her a
statue of Modesty. Her eyes were lowered.

But the captain's gesture had revealed the mysterious amulet which she
wore about her neck.

"What is that?" he said, seizing this pretext to approach once more the
beautiful creature whom he had just alarmed.

"Don't touch it!" she replied, quickly, "'tis my guardian. It will make
me find my family again, if I remain worthy to do so. Oh, leave me,
monsieur le capitaine! My mother! My poor mother! My mother! Where art
thou? Come to my rescue! Have pity, Monsieur Phoebus, give me back my
gorgerette!"

Phoebus retreated amid said in a cold tone,--

"Oh, mademoiselle! I see plainly that you do not love me!"

"I do not love him!" exclaimed the unhappy child, and at the same time
she clung to the captain, whom she drew to a seat beside her. "I do not
love thee, my Phoebus? What art thou saying, wicked man, to break my
heart? Oh, take me! take all! do what you will with me, I am th