er
two hands which he covered with kisses. "Yes, my love--I am thine for
life."

She pushed him violently away from her and rose. Her features
contracted, she laughed as mad people laugh, and then she said to him:
"You do not mean one word of all you are saying, base man--baser than
the lowest villain." She sprang to the dagger which was lying beside
a flower-vase, and let it sparkle before the eyes of the amazed young
marquis. "Bah!" she said, flinging it away from her, "I do not respect
you enough to kill you. Your blood is even too vile to be shed by
soldiers; I see nothing fit for you but the executioner."

The words were painfully uttered in a low voice, and she moved her feet
like a spoilt child, impatiently. The marquis went to her and tried to
clasp her.

"Don't touch me!" she cried, recoiling from him with a look of horror.

"She is mad!" said the marquis in despair.

"Mad, yes!" she repeated, "but not mad enough to be your dupe. What
would I not forgive to passion? but to seek to possess me without love,
and to write to that woman--"

"To whom have I written?" he said, with an astonishment which was
certainly not feigned.

"To that chaste woman who sought to kill me."

The marquis turned pale with anger and said, grasping the back of a
chair until he broke it, "If Madame du Gua has committed some dastardly
wrong--"

Mademoiselle de Verneuil looked for the letter; not finding it she
called to Francine.

"Where is that letter?" she asked.

"Monsieur Corentin took it."

"Corentin! ah! I understand it all; he wrote the letter; he has deceived
me with diabolical art--as he alone can deceive."

With a piercing cry she flung herself on the sofa, tears rushing from
her eyes. Doubt and confidence were equally dreadful now. The marquis
knelt beside her and clasped her to his breast, saying, again and again,
the only words he was able to utter:--

"Why do you weep, my darling? there is no harm done; your reproaches
were all love; do not weep, I love you--I shall always love you."

Suddenly he felt her press him with almost supernatural force. "Do you
still love me?" she said, amid her sobs.

"Can you doubt it?" he replied in a tone that was almost melancholy.

She abruptly disengaged herself from his arms, and fled, as if
frightened and confused, to a little distance.

"Do I doubt it?" she exclaimed, but a smile of gentle meaning was on her
lover's face, and the words died away upon her lips; she