se. She smiled haughtily, and said carelessly,--

"I have been at the Bois de Boulogne. In the morning I went out to make
some purchases; later, knowing that the Duchess of Champdoce is a little
unwell, and does not go out, I went to lunch with her; after that, as
the weather was so fine"--

Count Ville-Handry could endure it no longer.

Seizing his daughter by the wrists, he lifted her bodily, and, dragging
her up to the Countess Sarah, he hurled out,--

"On your knees, unhappy child! on your knees, and ask the best and
noblest of women to pardon you for all these insults!"

"You hurt me terribly, father," said the young girl coldly.

But the countess had already thrown herself between them.

"For Heaven's sake, madam," she said, "spare your father!"

And, as Henrietta measured her from head to foot with an insulting
glance, she went on,--

"Dear count, don't you see that your violence is killing me?"

Promptly Count Ville-Handry let his daughter go, and, drawing back, he
said,--

"Thank her, thank this angel of goodness who intercedes in your behalf!
But have a care! my patience is at an end. There are such things as
houses of correction for rebellious children and perverse daughters."

She interrupted him by a gesture, and exclaimed with startling energy,--

"Be it so, father! Choose among all these houses the very strictest, and
send me there. Whatever I may have to suffer there, it will be
better than being here, as long as I see in the place of my mother
that--woman!"

"Wretch!" howled the count.

He was suffocating. By a violent effort he tore off his cravat; and,
conscious that he was no longer master of himself, he cried to his
daughter,--

"Leave me, leave me! or I answer for nothing." She hesitated a moment.

Then, casting upon the countess one more look full of defiance, she
slowly went out of the room.

XIV.

"Well, I am sure the count can boast that he has had a curious
wedding-day."

This was the way the servants spoke at the moment when Henrietta left
the reception-room. She heard it; and without knowing whether they
approved her conduct, or laughed at it, she felt gratified, so eager is
passion for encouragement from anywhere.

But she had not yet gone half-way up the stairs which led to her own
rooms, when she was held at the place by the sound of all the bells of
the house, which had been set in motion by a furious hand. She bent over
the balusters to listen. The serva