ambled to his feet at
the sound.

"A visitor!" he murmured, turning pale. "Decidedly, I have no luck--"

"Monsieur le Marquis de Prerolles is in the drawing-room," a domestic
announced.

"Beg him to wait," said Eugenie, reassured by this visit, which was
earlier than the usual hour. "You see that you are badly informed,
Monsieur Desvanneaux," she added.

"For heaven's sake, spare me this embarrassing meeting!" said the
informer, whose complexion had become livid.

"I understand. You fear a challenge?"

"Oh, no, not that! My religious principles would forbid me to fight a
duel. But the General would not fail to rally me before my wife regarding
my presence here, and Madame Desvanneaux would be pitiless."

"Own, however, that you richly deserve a lesson, Lovelace that you are!
But I will take pity on you," said Eugenie, opening a door at the end of
the room. "The servants' stairway is at the end of that corridor. You
know the way!" she added, laughing.

"I am beginning to know it, dear Mademoiselle!" said the pitiful
beguiler, slipping through the doorway on tiptoe.

CHAPTER XIX

BROKEN TIES

After picking up a chair which, in his alarm, the fugitive had overturned
in his flight, Mademoiselle Gontier herself opened the door leading to
the drawing-room.

"Come in, Henri!" said she, lifting the portiere.

"Do I disturb you?" the General inquired, entering the library.

"Never! You know that well! But how gravely you asked the question!"

"For the reason that I wish to speak to you about serious matters, my
dear Eugenie."

The image of Zibeline passed before the eyes of the actress. That which
Desvanneaux had revealed, in accusing the girl of debauchery, now
appeared plausible to her, if considered in another way.

"You are about to marry!" she exclaimed.

They were the same words pronounced by Fanny Dorville in similar
circumstances.

"Never! You know that well enough!" he replied, in his turn.

"Speak, then!" said she, sinking upon a chair and motioning him to a seat
before her.

He obeyed, and sitting so far forward upon his chair that his knees
touched her skirt, he took both her hands in his own, and said gently:

"You know how much I love you, and how much I esteem you. You know, too,
the story of my life: my past follies, and also the honorable career I
have run in order to atone for them morally, for in a material sense they
are irreparable--according to my ideas, at least. This car