d--that is all
that concerns the world and you. I respect and admire him more than any
living man, and I shall be proud to become his wife when he returns, as
his wife I shall become in spite of all that you and your son may do."

The Dowager laughed softly, as if to herself.

"And if I tell you that Florimond is dead?"

"When you give me proof of that, I shall believe it," the girl replied.
The Marquise looked at her, her face manifesting no offence at the
almost insulting words.

"And if I were to lay that proof before you?" she inquired, sadly
almost.

Valerie's eyes opened a trifle wider, as if in apprehension. But her
answer was prompt and her voice steady. "It still could have no effect
upon my attitude towards your son."

"This is foolishness, Valerie--"

"In you it is, madame," the girl broke in; "a foolishness to think you
can constrain a girl, compel her affections, command her love, by such
means as you have employed towards me. You think that it predisposes me
to be wooed, that it opens my heart to your son, to see myself gaoled
that he may pay me his court."

"Gaoled, child? Who gaols you?" the Dowager cried, as if the most
surprising utterance had fallen from Valerie's lips.

Mademoiselle smiled in sorrow and some scorn.

"Am I not gaoled, then?" she asked. "What call you this? What does that
fellow there? He is to lie outside my door at nights to see that none
holds communication with me. He is to go with me each morning to the
garden, when, by your gracious charity I take the air. Sleeping and
waking the man is ever within hearing of any word that I may utter--"

"But if he has no French!" the Dowager protested.

"To ensure, no doubt, against any attempt of mine to win him to my side,
to induce him to aid me escape from this prison. Oh, madame, I tell you
you do but waste time, and you punish me and harass yourself to little
purpose. Had Marius been such a man as I might have felt it in my nature
to love which Heaven forbid!--these means by which you have sought to
bring that thing about could but have resulted in making me hate him as
I do."

The Dowager's fears were banished from her mind at that, and with them
went all thought of conciliating Valerie. Anger gleamed in her eyes; the
set of her lips grew suddenly sneering and cruel, so that the beauty of
her face but served to render it hateful the more.

"So that you hate him, ma mie?" a ripple of mockery on the current of
her voice,