miserable; that is
mean; that is infamous!"

The countess was roused at last. What all M. Folgat's skill and ability
had not been able to accomplish, Dionysia obtained in an instant by the
force of her passion. Throwing aside her mask, the countess exclaimed
with a perfect burst of rage,--

"Well, then, no, no! I have not acted so, and permitted all this to
happen, because I care for my reputation. My reputation!--what does it
matter? It was only a week ago, when Jacques had succeeded in escaping
from prison, I offered to flee with him. He had only to say a word, and
I should have given up my family, my children, my country, every thing,
for him. He answered, 'Rather the galleys!'"

In the midst of all her fearful sufferings, Dionysia's heart filled with
unspeakable happiness as she heard these words. Ah! now she could no
longer doubt Jacques.

"He has condemned himself, you see," continued the countess. "I was
quite willing to ruin myself for him, but certainly not for another
woman."

"And that other woman--no doubt you mean me!"

"Yes!--you for whose sake he abandoned me,--you whom he was going
to marry,--you with whom he hoped to enjoy long happy years, and a
happiness not furtive and sinful like ours, but a legitimate, honest
happiness."

Tears were trembling in Dionysia's eyes. She was beloved: she thought of
what she must suffer who was not beloved.

"And yet I should have been generous," she murmured. The countess broke
out into a fierce, savage laugh.

"And the proof of it is," said the young girl, "that I came to offer you
a bargain."

"A bargain?"

"Yes. Save Jacques, and, by all that is sacred to me in the world, I
promise I will enter a convent: I will disappear, and you shall never
hear my name any more."

Intense astonishment seized the countess, and she looked at Dionysia
with a glance full of doubt and mistrust. Such devotion seemed to her
too sublime not to conceal some snare.

"You would really do that?" she asked.

"Unhesitatingly."

"You would make a great sacrifice for my benefit?"

"For yours? No, madam, for Jacques's."

"You love him very dearly, do you?"

"I love him dearly enough to prefer his happiness to my own a thousand
times over. Even if I were buried in the depths of a convent, I should
still have the consolation of knowing that he owed his rehabilitation to
me; and I should suffer less in knowing that he belonged to another than
that he was innocent, and yet co