mind an hour. It could never be forgotten, least of all in the
company of Angelique, whom he was judging incessantly, either convicting
or acquitting her in his mind as he was alternately impressed by her
well-acted innocent gaiety or stung by a sudden perception of her power
of deceit and unrivalled assurance.

So they went on from day to day, fencing like two adepts in the art
of dissimulation, Bigot never glancing at the murder, and speaking of
Caroline as gone away to parts unknown, but, as Angelique observed with
bitterness, never making that a reason for pressing his suit; while she,
assuming the role of innocence and ignorance of all that had happened at
Beaumanoir, put on an appearance of satisfaction, or pretending still
to fits of jealousy, grew fonder in her demeanor and acted as though she
assumed as a matter of course that Bigot would now fulfill her hopes of
speedily making her his bride.

The Intendant had come and gone every day, unchanged in his manner, full
of spirits and gallantry, and as warm in his admiration as before; but
her womanly instinct told her there was something hidden under that gay
exterior.

Bigot accepted every challenge of flirtation, and ought to have declared
himself twenty times over, but he did not. He seemed to bring himself
to the brink of an avowal only to break into her confidence and surprise
the secret she kept so desperately concealed.

Angelique met craft by craft, duplicity by duplicity, but it began to
be clear to herself that she had met with her match, and although the
Intendant grew more pressing as a lover, she had daily less hope of
winning him as a husband.

The thought was maddening. Such a result admitted of a twofold meaning:
either he suspected her of the death of Caroline, or her charms, which
had never failed before with any man, failed now to entangle the one man
she had resolved to marry.

She cursed him in her heart while she flattered him with her tongue, but
by no art she was mistress of, neither by fondness nor by coyness, could
she extract the declaration she regarded as her due and was indignant
at not receiving. She had fairly earned it by her great crime. She had
still more fully earned it, she thought, by her condescensions. She
regarded Providence as unjust in withholding her reward, and for
punishing as a sin that which for her sake ought to be considered a
virtue.

She often reflected with regretful looking back upon the joy which Le