ston is conspiring--that is why he
came to Paris."

"Then you knew nothing of this conspiracy?"

"Alas, monsieur! I am but a woman, and, doubtless, Gaston did not think
me worthy to share such a secret."

"So much the better," cried the regent; "and now, my child, listen to
the voice of a friend, of a man who might be your father. Let the
chevalier go on the path he has chosen, since you have still the power
to go no further."

"Who? I, monsieur!" cried Helene; "I abandon him at a moment when you
yourself tell me that a danger threatens him that I had not known! Oh,
no, no, monsieur! We two are alone in the world, we have but each
other: Gaston has no parents, I have none either; or if I have, they
have been separated from me for sixteen years, and are accustomed to my
absence. We may, then, lose ourselves together without costing any one a
tear--oh, I deceived you, monsieur, and whatever crime he has committed,
or may commit, I am his accomplice."

"Ah!" murmured the regent, in a choking voice, "my last hope fails me;
she loves him."

Helene turned, with astonishment, toward the stranger who took so lively
an interest in her sorrow. The regent composed himself.

"But," continued he, "did you not almost renounce him? Did you not tell
him, the day you separated, that you could not dispose of your heart and
person?"

"Yes, I told him so," replied the young girl, with exaltation,
"because at that time I believed him happy, because I did not know
that his liberty, perhaps his life, were compromised; then, my
heart would have suffered, but my conscience would have remained
tranquil; it was a grief to bear, not a remorse to combat; but
since I know him threatened--unhappy--I feel that his life is mine."

"But you exaggerate your love for him," replied the regent, determined
to ascertain his daughter's feelings. "This love would yield to
absence."

"It would yield to nothing, monsieur; in the isolation in which my
parents left me, this love has become my only hope, my happiness, my
life. Ah! monsieur, if you have any influence with him--and you must
have, since he confides to you the secrets which he keeps from me--in
Heaven's name, induce him to renounce these projects, of which you
speak; tell him what I dare not tell him myself, that I love him beyond
all expression; tell him that his fate shall be mine; that if he be
exiled, I exile myself; if he be imprisoned, I will be so too; and that
if he dies, I die. Te