rait had twice come into my life by a kind of strange fatality
(and was at that moment in my pocket), that I could scarce maintain
my self-possession in her presence. I had given the portrait, too,
attributes and a character, and I found myself watching the lady with
a breathless interest lest she should fail in any of these. In the
intimacy of the little room I felt as if I had known her always, and
again, that she was as distant from me and my life as the court from
which she had come. I found myself glancing continually at her face, on
which the candle-light shone. The Vicomtesse might have been four and
twenty. Save for the soberer gown she wore, she seemed scarce older than
the young girl in the miniature who had the presence of a woman of the
world. Suddenly I discovered with a flush that she was looking at me
intently, without embarrassment, but with an expression that seemed
to hint of humor in the situation. To my astonishment, she laughed a
little.

"You are a very odd person, Mr. Ritchie," she said. "I have heard so
much of you from Mrs. Temple, from Antoinette, that I know something of
your strange life. After all," she added with a trace of sadness, "it
has been no stranger than my own. First I will answer your questions,
and then I shall ask some."

"But I have asked no questions, Madame la Vicomtesse," I said.

"And you are a very simple person, Mr. Ritchie," continued Madame la
Vicomtesse, smiling; "it is what I had been led to suppose. A serious
person. As the friend of Mr. Nicholas Temple, as the relation and (may
I say?) benefactor of this poor lady here, it is fitting that you should
know certain things. I will not weary you with the reasons and events
which led to my coming from Europe to New Orleans, except to say that I,
like all of my class who have escaped the horrors of the Revolution, am
a wanderer, and grateful to Monsieur de St. Gre for the shelter he gives
me. His letter reached me in England, and I arrived three months ago."

She hesitated--nay, I should rather say paused, for there was little
hesitation in what she did. She paused, as though weighing what she was
to say next.

"When I came to Les Iles I saw that there was a sorrow weighing upon
the family; and it took no great astuteness on my part, Mr. Ritchie,
to discover that Antoinette was the cause of it. One has only to see
Antoinette to love her. I wondered why she had not married. And yet I
saw that there had been an affair.