foundest regrets on the part of
De Pean, who met her at the door and strove to exculpate himself from
the accusation of having persuaded Le Gardeur to depart from Tilly, and
of keeping him in the Palace against the prayers of his friends.

De Pean remembered his presumption as well as his rejection by Amelie at
Tilly, and while his tongue ran smooth as oil in polite regrets that Le
Gardeur had resolved not to see his sister to-day, her evident distress
filled him with joy, which he rolled under his tongue as the most
delicate morsel of revenge he had ever tasted.

Bowing with well-affected politeness, De Pean attended her to her
carriage, and having seen her depart in tears, returned laughing into
the Palace, remarking, as he mimicked the weeping countenance of Amelie,
that "the Honnetes Gens had learned it was a serious matter to come
to the burial of the virtues of a young gentleman like Le Gardeur de
Repentigny."

On her return home Amelie threw herself on the neck of her aunt,
repeating in broken accents, "My poor Le Gardeur! my brother! He refuses
to see me, aunt! He is lost and ruined in that den of all iniquity and
falsehood!"

"Be composed, Amelie," replied the Lady de Tilly; "I know it is hard to
bear, but perhaps Le Gardeur did not send that message to you. The
men about him are capable of deceiving you to an extent you have no
conception of,--you who know so little of the world's baseness."

"O aunt, it is true! He sent me this dreadful thing; I took it, for it
bears the handwriting of my brother."

She held in her hand a card, one of a pack. It was the death-card of
superstitious lookers into futurity. Had he selected it because it bore
that reputation, or was it by chance?

On the back of it he had written, or scrawled in a trembling hand, yet
plainly, the words: "Return home, Amelie. I will not see you. I have
lost the game of life and won the card you see. Return home, dear
sister, and forget your unworthy and ruined brother, Le Gardeur."

Lady de Tilly took the card, and read and re-read it, trying to find a
meaning it did not contain, and trying not to find the sad meaning it
did contain.

She comforted Amelie as best she could, while needing strength herself
to bear the bitter cross laid upon them both, in the sudden blighting of
that noble life of which they had been so proud.

She took Amelie in her arms, mingling her own tears with hers, and
bidding her not despair. "A sister's love," sa