rancezka Cheverny.

That was all; none of her other names and titles, scarce one
superfluous word--but a letter written in the very ecstasy and
palpitation of joy.

It took Count Saxe not an hour to fix a day for our departure for
Capello, and I wrote a letter telling Francezka when we should arrive;
and trying to tell her how deep was my joy in her joy.

Within a week we rode for Brabant--only myself and Beauvais with Count
Saxe--and traveled leisurely in the pleasant spring weather.

What Jacques Haret had told concerning the poor Count Bellegarde was
true. He, the most absurd creature alive, who had believed for years
that this glorious creature was his for the asking, had come to the
chateau of Capello that May afternoon, and had made Francezka a formal
offer of marriage. It had been easy enough to dispose of the poor
gentleman. Francezka's temper was naturally warm. In this case, her
heart eating itself with despair, her nerves racked with hope
deferred, she had turned like a lioness upon the unfortunate
Bellegarde. He had fled from her indignant presence, and from the
wrath which shone in her eyes and blazed in her cheeks; and Francezka,
trembling and tempest-tossed, had, in her turn, fled to the Italian
garden, where she could be alone. For she needed to be alone to face
the specter which now took shape before her. It was no less than her
dead hopes, clad in their grave clothes, which told her that Gaston
Cheverny was no more. And while she walked slowly up and down the
path, with this horror walking beside her, she looked up, and, behold!
There stood Gaston Cheverny in the flesh.

Of what she said or did, Francezka had no memory. When she first
became conscious of thought, she was lying in Gaston's arms, in an
agony of sobbing and crying, and he was soothing her, and lavishing
upon her every tenderness that love could devise. And after a time,
when the first great shock of joy was over, Francezka rallied and
became herself again--brave, resolute and loving. And then they looked
into each other's eyes with rapture, and Gaston cried:

"We can never again be apart beyond the touch of each other's hand."

And after an hour spent in paradise, Francezka and Gaston walked hand
in hand to the chateau, the servants and dependents were summoned, and
Francezka, kneeling among them, with her hand on Gaston's shoulder,
humbly gave thanks to God for having restored her best beloved to her.
The news spread like wildfir