t we can talk best'; and we
went near to the spinet, where Madame Lotbiniere was playing. 'It is
true,' he began, 'that I have had a letter from your brother. He begs me
to use influence for his advancement. You see he writes to me instead of
to the Governor. You can guess how I stand in France. Well, we shall
see what I may do.... Have you not wondered concerning me this week?' he
asked. I said to him, 'I scarce expected you till after to-morrow, when
you would plead some accident as cause for not fulfilling your pretty
little boast.' He looked at me sharply for a minute, and then said:
'A pretty LITTLE boast, is it? H'm! you touch great things with light
fingers.' I nodded. 'Yes,' said I, 'when I have no great faith.' 'You
have marvellous coldness for a girl that promised warmth in her youth,'
he answered. 'Even I, who am old in these matters, can not think of this
Moray's death without a twinge, for it is not like an affair of battle;
but you seem to think of it in its relation to my "little boast," as you
call it. Is it not so?'

"'No, no,' said I, with apparent indignation, 'you must not make me out
so cruel. I am not so hard-hearted as you think. My brother is well--I
have no feeling against Captain Moray on his account; and as for
spying--well, it is only a painful epithet for what is done here and
everywhere all the time.' 'Dear me, dear me,' he remarked lightly, 'what
a mind you have for argument!--a born casuist; and yet, like all women,
you would let your sympathy rule you in matters of state. But come,'
he added, 'where do you think I have been?' It was hard to answer him
gaily, and yet it must be done, and so I said, 'You have probably put
yourself in prison, that you should not keep your tiny boast.' 'I have
been in prison,' he answered, 'and I was on the wrong side, with no
key--even locked in a chest-room of the Intendance,' he explained, 'but
as yet I do not know by whom, nor am I sure why. After two days without
food or drink, I managed to get out through the barred window. I
spent three days in my room, ill, and here I am. You must not speak of
this--you will not?' he asked me. 'To no one,' I answered gaily, 'but
my other self.' 'Where is your other self?' he asked. 'In here,' said I,
touching my bosom. I did not mean to turn my head away when I said it,
but indeed I felt I could not look him in the eyes at the moment, for I
was thinking of you.

"He mistook me; he thought I was coquetting with him,