y to
fondness. "I am not unmindful of my promises; there is nothing better to
myself than to keep them, nothing worse than to break them. Beaumanoir
is now without reproach, and you can visit it without fear of aught but
the ghosts in the gallery."

Angelique feared no ghosts, but she did fear that the Intendant's words
implied a suggestion of one which might haunt it for the future, if
there were any truth in tales.

"How can you warrant that, Bigot?" asked she dubiously.

"Because Pierre Philibert and La Corne St. Luc have been with the King's
warrant and searched the chateau from crypt to attic, without finding a
trace of your rival."

"What, Chevalier, searched the Chateau of the Intendant?"

"Par bleu! yes, I insisted upon their doing so; not, however, till they
had gone through the Castle of St. Louis. They apologized to me for
finding nothing. What did they expect to find, think you?"

"The lady, to be sure! Oh, Bigot," continued she, tapping him with her
fan, "if they would send a commission of women to search for her, the
secret could not remain hid."

"No, truly, Angelique! If you were on such a commission to search for
the secret of her."

"Well, Bigot, I would never betray it, if I knew it," answered she,
promptly.

"You swear to that, Angelique?" asked he, looking full in her eyes,
which did not flinch under his gaze.

"Yes; on my book of hours, as you did!" said she.

"Well, there is my hand upon it, Angelique. I have no secret to tell
respecting her. She has gone, I cannot tell WHITHER."

Angelique gave him her hand on the lie. She knew he was playing with
her, as she with him, a game of mutual deception, which both knew to be
such. And yet they must, circumstanced as they were, play it out to
the end, which end, she hoped, would be her marriage with this
arch-deceiver. A breach of their alliance was as dangerous as it would
be unprofitable to both.

Bigot rose to depart with an air of gay regret at leaving the company
of Angelique to make room for De Pean, "who," he said, "would pull every
hair out of his horse's mane if he waited much longer."

"Your visit is no pleasure to you, Bigot," said she, looking hard at
him. "You are discontented with me, and would rather go than stay!"

"Well, Angelique, I am a dissatisfied man to-day. The mysterious
disappearance of that girl from Beaumanoir is the cause of my
discontent. The defiant boldness of the Bourgeois Philibert is another.
I have h