lace of his beloved.

There, behind those heavy, beautifully carved gates, which were open to
all comers but to him, lived she who was more to him than his life. If
he had struck the flagstones of the sidewalk with the heel of his boots,
she would have heard the sound. He could hear the music of her piano;
and yet the will of one man placed an abyss between them.

He was dying of inaction. It seemed to him atrocious, humiliating,
intolerable, to be thus reduced to expecting good or evil fortune from
fate, passively, without making an effort, like a man, who having taken
a ticket in a lottery, and is all anxiety to obtain a large fortune,
crosses his arms and waits for the drawing.

He was suffering thus for six days, and saw no end of it; when one
morning, just as he was going out, his bell rang. He went to open the
door.

It was a lady, who, without saying a word, swiftly walked in, and as
promptly shut the door behind her.

Although she was wrapped up in a huge cloak which completely hid
her figure, in spite of the very thick veil before her face, Daniel
recognized her at once.

"Miss Brandon!" he exclaimed.

In the meantime she had raised her veil, "Yes, it is I," she replied,
"risking another calumny in addition to all the others that have been
raised against me, Daniel."

Amazed at a step which seemed to him the height of imprudence, he
remained standing in the anteroom, and did not even think of inviting
Miss Brandon to go into the next room, his study.

She went in of her own accord, quite aloof; and, when he had followed
her, she said to him,--

"I came, sir, to ask you what you have done with that promise you gave
me the other night at my house?"

She waited a moment; and, as he did not reply, she went on,--

"Come, I see you are like all men, if they pledge their word to another
man, who is a match for them, they consider it a point of honor to keep
it, but if it is a woman, then they do not keep it, and boast of it!"

Daniel was furious; but she pretended not to see it, and said more
coldly,--

"I--I have a better memory than you, sir; and I mean to prove it to you.
I know what has happened at Count Ville-Handry's house; he has told me
all. You have allowed yourself to be carried away so far as to threaten
him, to raise your hand against him."

"He was going to strike his daughter, and I held his arm."

"No, sir! my dear count is incapable of such violence; and yet his own
daughter had da