erself and Madame Strahlberg?--Was M. de Cymier meant by the
cock? And Fred had heard all this--he had drawn his sword to refute the
calumny. Brave Fred! Alas! he had been prompted only by chivalric
generosity. Doubtless he, also, looked upon her as an adventuress.

All night poor Jacqueline wept with such distress that she wished that
she might die. She was dropping off to sleep at last, overpowered by
fatigue, when a ring at the bell in the early morning roused her. Then
she heard whispering:

"Do you think she is so unhappy?"

It was the voice of Giselle.

"Come in--come in quickly!" she cried, springing out of bed. Wrapped in a
dressing-gown, with bare feet, her face pale, her eyelids red, her
complexion clouded, she rushed to meet her friend, who was almost as much
disordered as herself. It seemed as if Madame de Talbrun might also have
passed a night of sleeplessness and tears.

"You have come! Oh! you have come at last!" cried Jacqueline, throwing
her arms around her, but Giselle repelled her with a gesture so severe
that the poor child could not but understand its meaning. She murmured,
pointing to the pile of newspapers: "Is it possible?--Can you have
believed all those dreadful things?"

"What things? I have read nothing," said Giselle, harshly. "I only know
that a man who was neither your husband nor your brother, and who
consequently was under no obligation to defend you, has been foolish
enough to be nearly killed for your sake. Is not that a proof of your
downfall? Don't you know it?"

"Downfall?" repeated Jacqueline, as if she did not understand her. Then,
seizing her friend's hand, she forcibly raised it to her lips: "Ah! what
can anything matter to me," she cried, "if only you remain my friend; and
he has never doubted me!"

"Women like you can always find defenders," said Giselle, tearing her
hand from her cousin's grasp.

Giselle was not herself at that moment. "But, for your own sake, it would
have been better he should have abstained from such an act of Quixotism."

"Giselle! can it be that you think me guilty?"

"Guilty!" cried Madame de Talbrun, her pale face aflame. "A little more
and Monsieur de Cymier's sword-point would have pierced his lungs."

"Good heavens!" cried Jacqueline, hiding her face in her hands. "But I
have done nothing to--"

"Nothing except to set two men against each other; to make them suffer,
or to make fools of them, and to be loved by them all the same."

"