ve you from
the Blues to-day."

Montauran showed some surprise. She smiled sadly and pointed to a block
of granite, as if to tell him to sit down, while she herself stood
before him in a melancholy attitude. The rending emotions of her soul no
longer permitted her to play a part. At that moment she would have knelt
on red-hot coals without feeling them any more than the marquis had felt
the fire-brand he had taken in his hand to prove the strength of his
passion. It was not until she had contemplated her lover with a look of
the deepest anguish that she said to him, at last:--

"All that you have suspected of me is true."

The marquis started.

"Ah! I pray you," she said, clasping her hands, "listen to me without
interruption. I am indeed the daughter of the Duc de Verneuil,--but his
natural daughter. My mother, a Demoiselle de Casteran, who became a nun
to escape the reproaches of her family, expiated her fault by fifteen
years of sorrow, and died at Seez, where she was abbess. On her
death-bed she implored, for the first time and only for me, the help of
the man who had betrayed her, for she knew she was leaving me without
friends, without fortune, without a future. The duke accepted the
charge, and took me from the roof of Francine's mother, who had hitherto
taken care of me; perhaps he liked me because I was beautiful; possibly
I reminded him of his youth. He was one of those great lords of the
old regime, who took pride in showing how they could get their crimes
forgiven by committing them with grace. I will say no more, he was my
father. But let me explain to you how my life in Paris injured my soul.
The society of the Duc de Verneuil, to which he introduced me, was
bitten by that scoffing philosophy about which all France was
then enthusiastic because it was wittily professed. The brilliant
conversations which charmed my ear were marked by subtlety of perception
and by witty contempt for all that was true and spiritual. Men laughed
at sentiments, and pictured them all the better because they did
not feel them; their satirical epigrams were as fascinating as the
light-hearted humor with which they could put a whole adventure into
a word; and yet they had sometimes too much wit, and wearied women by
making love an art, and not a matter of feeling. I could not resist the
tide. And yet my soul was too ardent--forgive this pride--not to feel
that their minds had withered their hearts; and the life I led resulted