n to the village
inn, where he had arranged that he should meet, by mere accident, as it
were, his old city friends.

The bold, generous nature of Le Gardeur, who neither suspected nor
feared any evil, greeted them with warmth. They were jovial fellows, he
knew, who would be affronted if he refused to drink a cup of wine with
them. They talked of the gossip of the city, its coteries and
pleasant scandals, and of the beauty and splendor of the queen of
society--Angelique des Meloises.

Le Gardeur, with a painful sense of his last interview with Angelique,
and never for a moment forgetting her reiterated words, "I love you, Le
Gardeur, but I will not marry you," kept silent whenever she was named,
but talked with an air of cheerfulness on every other topic.

His one glass of wine was soon followed by another. He was pressed with
such cordiality that he could not refuse. The fire was rekindled, at
first with a faint glow upon his cheek and a sparkle in his eye; but the
table soon overflowed with wine, mirth, and laughter. He drank without
reflection, and soon spoke with warmth and looseness from all restraint.

De Pean, resolved to excite Le Gardeur to the utmost, would not cease
alluding to Angelique. He recurred again and again to the splendor of
her charms and the fascination of her ways. He watched the effect of
his speech upon the countenance of Le Gardeur, keenly observant of every
expression of interest excited by the mention of her.

"We will drink to her bright eyes," exclaimed De Pean, filling his glass
until it ran over, "first in beauty and worthy to be first in place in
New France--yea, or Old France either! and he is a heathen who will not
drink this toast!"

"Le Gardeur will not drink it! Neither would I, in his place," replied
Emeric de Lantagnac, too drunk now to mind what he said. "I would drink
to the bright eyes of no woman who had played me the trick Angelique has
played upon Le Gardeur!"

"What trick has she played upon me?" repeated Le Gardeur, with a touch
of anger.

"Why, she has jilted you, and now flies at higher game, and nothing but
a prince of the blood will satisfy her!"

"Does she say that, or do you invent it?" Le Gardeur was almost choking
with angry feelings. Emeric cared little what he said, drunk or sober.
He replied gravely,--

"Oh, all the women in the city say she said it! But you know, Le
Gardeur, women will lie of one another faster than a man can count a
hundred by te