let him take
her by the hand and lead her to the salon. There an altar had been
hastily arranged during her absence. The priest was robed in his
officiating vestments. The lighted tapers shed upon the ceiling a glow
as soft as hope itself. She now recognized the two men who had bowed to
her, the Comte de Bauvan and the Baron du Guenic, the witnesses chosen
by Montauran.

"You will not still refuse?" said the marquis.

But at the sight she stopped, stepped backward into her chamber and
fell on her knees; raising her hands towards the marquis she cried out:
"Pardon! pardon! pardon!"

Her voice died away, her head fell back, her eyes closed, and she lay in
the arms of her lover and Francine as if dead. When she opened her eyes
they met those of the young man full of loving tenderness.

"Marie! patience! this is your last trial," he said.

"The last!" she exclaimed, bitterly.

Francine and the marquis looked at each other in surprise, but she
silenced them by a gesture.

"Call the priest," she said, "and leave me alone with him."

They did so, and withdrew.

"My father," she said to the priest so suddenly called to her, "in my
childhood an old man, white-haired like yourself, used to tell me that
God would grant all things to those who had faith. Is that true?"

"It is true," replied the priest; "all things are possible to Him who
created all."

Mademoiselle de Verneuil threw herself on her knees before him with
incredible enthusiasm.

"Oh, my God!" she cried in ecstasy, "my faith in thee is equal to my
love for him; inspire me! do here a miracle, or take my life!"

"Your prayer will be granted," said the priest.

Marie returned to the salon leaning on the arm of the venerable old
man. A deep and secret emotion brought her to the arms of her lover more
brilliant than on any of her past days, for a serenity like that which
painters give to the martyrs added to her face an imposing dignity. She
held out her hand to the marquis and together they advanced to the
altar and knelt down. The marriage was about to be celebrated beside
the nuptial bed, the altar hastily raised, the cross, the vessels, the
chalice, secretly brought thither by the priest, the fumes of incense
rising to the ceiling, the priest himself, who wore a stole above his
cassock, the tapers on an altar in a salon,--all these things combined
to form a strange and touching scene, which typified those times of
saddest memory, when civil discord ov