"When Louise is found--" she was half sobbing in his arms,
"--dreams--yes--perhaps you might find a way to bring them true!"

But the gallant gentleman jumps forward to the end of the dream.
Youthfully swearing that Louise will soon be found, he visions their
exquisite happiness as of tomorrow or the day after. He holds her
delightedly, then draws her closer. The kindred magnets are one.

Lips meet lips in soul-kiss that cause the maidenly head to hide under
elbow in confusion. Kissing almost every part and furnishing of that
dear second self--vowing never to rest till he brings Louise and takes
Henriette--the ecstatic cavalier is gone!

Alas for the quickly visioned dream-facts of twenty-four! Full long
shall be the interval betwixt the bright Utopia and the heavenly
reality:--the dungeon, the Storm, the death chamber and e'en the
shining axe shall intervene.

A great Nation shall have thrown off its old tyrants and weltered in
the blood of new tyranny. What matter? The souls of the girl and the
man are one, they shall be faithful unto the End!

CHAPTER XIII

THE RECOGNITION

The Chevalier de Vaudrey sought his Aunt and begged her to see his
beloved before finally siding with the Count against him. The incident
of the chance encounter with the blind girl had stirred the Countess,
awakened renewed pity for hapless love such as she herself had once
experienced. She decided to visit Henriette, if only to divert her
from the seemingly mad project of a union with the Chevalier.

Meantime Count Linieres had decided to exercise the power of the dread
lettres de cachet. In the France of that day, personal rights were
unknown. Subject only to the King's will, no other warrant than the
Prefect's signature was required to send anyone into exile or to life
imprisonment. The means that Linieres now had in mind were often used
to quell rebellious lovers.

He would brand this inconvenient, presumptuous Henriette Girard as a
fallen woman, imprison her at La Salpetriere, and then ship her as a
convict to Louisiana. That would get rid of her, truly!

In the meanwhile the Chevalier, if disobedient, could cool his heels
in the prison tower of the royal fortress at Caen. After a while, he
might indeed see reason and think better of marrying the Princesse de
Acquitaine!

He summoned the Chevalier. The autocratic Count brooked no words; he
commanded marriage with the State heiress--or exile!

His nephew refusing, the