e, your fears are my own!" exclaimed Heloise, pressing Amelie to
her side. "I must, I will tell you. O loved sister of mine,--let me
call you so!--to you alone I dare acknowledge my hopeless love for Le
Gardeur, and my deep and abiding interest in his welfare."

"Nay, do not say hopeless, Heloise!" replied Amelie, kissing her fondly.
"Le Gardeur is not insensible to your beauty and goodness. He is too
like myself not to love you."

"Alas, Amelie! I know it is all in vain. I have neither beauty nor
other attractions in his eyes. He left me yesterday to converse with the
Chevalier de Pean on the subject of Angelique des Meloises, and I
saw, by the agitation of his manner, the flush upon his cheek, and
the eagerness of his questioning, that he cared more for Angelique,
notwithstanding her reported engagement with the Intendant, than he did
for a thousand Heloises de Lotbiniere!"

The poor girl, overpowered by the recollection, hid her face upon the
shoulder of Amelie, and sobbed as if her very heart were breaking,--as
in truth it was.

Amelie, so happy and secure in her own affection, comforted Heloise with
her tears and caresses, but it was only by picturing in her imagination
her own state, should she be so hapless as to lose the love of Pierre
Philibert, that she could realize the depth of misery and abandonment
which filled the bosom of her fair companion.

She was, moreover, struck to the heart by the words of Heloise regarding
the eagerness of her brother to get word of Angelique. "The Chevalier de
Pean might have brought a message, perhaps a love-token from Angelique
to Le Gardeur to draw him back to the city," thought she. If so, she
felt instinctively that all their efforts to redeem him would be in
vain, and that neither sister's love nor Pierre's remonstrances would
avail to prevent his return. He was the slave of the lamp and Angelique
its possessor.

"Heaven forbid, Heloise!" she said faintly; "Le Gardeur is lost if he
return to the city now! Twice lost--lost as a gentleman, lost as the
lover of a woman who cares for him only as a pastime and as a foil
to her ambitious designs upon the Intendant! Poor Le Gardeur! what
happiness might not be his in the love of a woman noble-minded as
himself! What happiness were he yours, O darling Heloise!" She kissed
her pallid cheeks, wet with tears, which lay by hers on the same pillow,
and both remained silently brooding over the thoughts which spring from
love and