r
Fontainebleau. The day after, the same result; and for a whole week the
doors remained closed.

"I was becoming restless, when a commissionaire, one morning, brought
me a letter. It was Miss Brandon who wrote. She asked me to be that very
day, at four o'clock, in the Bois de Boulogne, near the waterfalls;
that she would ride out in the afternoon with Sir Thorn; that she would
escape from him, and meet me.

"As a matter of course, I was punctual; and it was well I was so, for,
a few minutes after I got there, I saw her--or rather I felt her--coming
towards me, riding at full speed. When she reached me, she stopped
suddenly, and, jumping from her horse, said to me,--

"'They watch me so jealously, that I could not write to you till to-day.
I am deeply wounded by this want of confidence, and I do not think I can
endure it any longer. Here I am, carry me off, let us go!'

"Never, O Daniel! never have I seen her look more marvellously beautiful
than she looked at that moment. She was flushed with excitement and the
rapid ride; her eyes shone with courage and passion; her lips trembled;
and then she said again,--

"'I know I am ruining myself; and you yourself--you will probably
despise me. But never mind! Let us be gone!'"

He paused, overcome with excitement; but, soon recovering, he
continued,--

"To hear a beautiful woman tell you that! Ah, Daniel! that is an
experience which alone is worth a man's whole life. And yet I had the
courage, mad as I felt I was becoming, to speak to her words of calm
reason. Yes, I had the sublime courage, and the almost fortuitous
control over myself, to conjure her to retreat into her house.

"She began to weep, and accused me of indifference.

"But I had discovered a way out of the difficulty, and said to her,--

"'Sarah, go home. Write to me what you have just told me, and I am sure
I shall compel your friends to grant me your hand.'

"This she did.

"And what I had foreseen came to pass. In the face of such evidence of
what they called our madness, Sir Thorn and Mrs. Brian dared not oppose
our plans any longer. After some little hesitations, and imposing
certain honorable conditions, they said to Sarah and myself,--

"'You will have it so. Go, then, and get married.'"

This is what Count Ville-Handry called chance, a "blessed chance," as
he said, utterly unmindful of the whole chain of circumstances which he
himself related. From the accident that had befallen M. Elgin,