was a subtle
difference in all things. 'Twas as if some fine spring in the delicate
mechanism of her being had broken. It might run on for years, but never
again with the perfectness and buoyancy with which it had once moved.

As her life altered so terribly, as all that she had known and valued
perished miserably before her eyes day by day, the thought of Calvert
and of his calm steadiness and sincerity became constant with her. She
heard of him from time to time from Mr. Morris after his frequent visits
to London and through letters to her brother and Lafayette, to whom
Calvert wrote periodically, but she had no hope of ever seeing him
again, and she suffered in the knowledge. Though he seemed cruel to her
in his hardness, she was just enough to confess to herself that she so
deserved to suffer. But she had learned so much through suffering that a
sick distaste for life's lessons grew upon her, and she felt that she
wanted no more of them unless knowledge should come to her through love.
In her changed life there was little to relieve her suffering, but she
devoted herself to the old Duchess, who failed visibly day by day, and
in that service she could sometimes forget her own unhappiness. She went
with the intrepid old lady (who continued to ignore the revolution as
much as possible) wherever they could find distraction--to the play and
to the houses of their friends still left in Paris, where a little
dinner or a game of quinze or whist could still be enjoyed.

'Twas on one of these occasions that, accompanied by Beaufort, as they
were returning along the Champs Elysees from Madame de Montmorin's,
where they had spent the evening, they suddenly heard the report of
pistols proceeding from an allee by the road-side.

"A duel!" said Beaufort. "'Twas near here that poor Castries was killed.
Perhaps it is another friend in trouble, and I had best see," and,
calling to the coachman to stop the horses, he jumped out. Almost at the
same instant a man stumbled out of the allee and ran down the boulevard.
Beaufort would have followed him, but, as he started to do so, he heard
his name called and, looking back, saw another man emerge from the allee
and gaze down the almost deserted street. By the dim light of the
lantern swung from its great iron post the man recognized Monsieur de
Beaufort and ran forward.

"Will you come?" he said, hurriedly. "Monsieur Calvert is here--wounded
by that villain."

"Calvert--impossible! H