the poor girl threw herself on her knees before her father,
beseeching him to protect her. But he pushed her back, and reproached
her for slandering the most honorable and most inoffensive of men.
Blindness could go no farther.

And Sir Thorn knew probably of her failure; for the next day he looked
at her, laughing, as if he felt that he now might venture upon any
thing. And he did venture upon something, that so far would have seemed
impossible. One evening, or rather one night, when the count and the
countess were at a ball, he came and knocked at the door of Henrietta's
chamber.

Frightened, she rang the bell; and the servants who came up freed her
from the intruder. But from that moment her terrors had no limit; and,
whenever the count went out at night with his wife, she barricaded
herself up in her chamber, and spent the whole night, dressed, in a
chair. Could she remain any longer standing upon the brink of an abyss
without name? She thought she could not; and after long and painful
hesitation, she said one evening to M. de Brevan,--

"My mind is made up; I must flee."

Taken aback, as if he had received a blow upon his head, with his mouth
wide open, his eyes stretched out, M. de Brevan had turned deadly pale;
and the perspiration pearled in large drops on his temples, while his
hands trembled like the eager hands of a man who touches, and is about
to seize, a long-coveted prize.

"Then," he stammered out, "you are decided; you will leave your father's
house?"

"I must," she said; and her eyes filled with bright tears. "And the
sooner I can do it the better; for every moment I spend here now may
bring a new danger. And yet, before risking any thing decisive, it might
be better first to write to Daniel's aunt in order to ask her about the
directions she may have received, and to tell her that very soon I shall
come to ask for her pity and her protection."

"What? You think of seeking refuge at the house of that estimable lady?"

"Certainly."

M. de Brevan, now entirely master of himself, and calculating with his
usual calmness, gravely shook his head, and said,--

"You ought to be careful, madam. To seek an asylum at the house of our
friend's relative might be a very grave imprudence."

"But Daniel recommended it to me in his letter."

"Yes; but he had not considered the consequences of the advice he gave
you. Do not deceive yourself; the wrath of your enemies will be terrible
when they find that y