ations the
mysteries of which are buried in the soul, and prove by their thousand
contradictory emotions, to the woman who undergoes them, that it is
possible to have a stormy and passionate existence between four walls
without even moving from the ottoman on which her very life is burning
itself away. She had reached the final scene of the drama she had come
to enact, and her mind was going over and over the phases of love and
anger which had so powerfully stirred her during the ten days which
had now elapsed since her first meeting with the marquis. A man's
step suddenly sounded in the adjoining room and she trembled; the door
opened, she turned quickly and saw Corentin.

"You little cheat!" said the police-agent, "when will you stop
deceiving? Ah, Marie, Marie, you are playing a dangerous game by not
taking me into your confidence. Why do you play such tricks without
consulting me? If the marquis escapes his fate--"

"It won't be your fault, will it?" she replied, sarcastically.
"Monsieur," she continued, in a grave voice, "by what right do you come
into my house?"

"Your house?" he exclaimed.

"You remind me," she answered, coldly, "that I have no home. Perhaps you
chose this house deliberately for the purpose of committing murder. I
shall leave it. I would live in a desert to get away from--"

"Spies, say the word," interrupted Corentin. "But this house is neither
yours nor mine, it belongs to the government; and as for leaving it you
will do nothing of the kind," he added, giving her a diabolical look.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil rose indignantly, made a few steps to leave the
room, but stopped short suddenly as Corentin raised the curtain of the
window and beckoned her, with a smile, to come to him.

"Do you see that column of smoke?" he asked, with the calmness he always
kept on his livid face, however intense his feelings might be.

"What has my departure to do with that burning brush?" she asked.

"Why does your voice tremble?" he said. "You poor thing!" he added, in
a gentle voice, "I know all. The marquis is coming to Fougeres this
evening; and it is not with any intention of delivering him to us that
you have arranged this boudoir and the flowers and candles."

Mademoiselle de Verneuil turned pale, for she saw her lover's death in
the eyes of this tiger with a human face, and her love for him rose to
frenzy. Each hair on her head caused her an acute pain she could not
endure, and she fell on the ot