d straight into his
eyes--

"Never!"

"I believe you!" exclaimed Jeannin, going down on his knees and covering
with his kisses the hand he still held. "I can taste happiness again.
Listen, Angelique. I am leaving Paris; my mother is dead, and I am going
back to Spain. Will you follow me thither?"

"I---follow you?"

"I hesitated long before finding you out, so much did I fear a repulse.
I set out to-morrow. Quit Paris, leave the world which has slandered
you, and come with me. In a fortnight we shall be man and wife."

"You are not in earnest!"

"May I expire at your feet if I am not! Do you want me to sign the oath
with my blood?"

"Rise," she said in a broken voice. "Have I at last found a man to love
me and compensate me for all the abuse that has been showered on my head?
A thousand times I thank you, not for what you are doing for me, but for
the balm you pour on my wounded spirit. Even if you were to say to me
now, 'After all, I am obliged to give you up' the pleasure of knowing you
esteem me would make up for all the rest. It would be another happy
memory to treasure along with my memory of our love, which was
ineffaceable, although you so ungratefully suspected me of having
deceived you."

The treasurer appeared fairly intoxicated with joy. He indulged in a
thousand ridiculous extravagances and exaggerations, and declared himself
the happiest of men. Mademoiselle de Guerchi, who was desirous of being
prepared for every peril, asked him in a coaxing tone--

"Who can have put it into your head to be jealous of the commander? Has
he been base enough to boast that I ever gave him my love?"

"No, he never said anything about you; but someway I was afraid."

She renewed her assurances. The conversation continued some time in a
sentimental tone. A thousand oaths, a thousand protestations of love
were, exchanged. Jeannin feared that the suddenness of their journey
would inconvenience his mistress, and offered to put it off for some
days; but to this she would not consent, and it was arranged that the
next day at noon a carriage should call at the house and take Angelique
out of town to an appointed place at which the treasurer was to join her.

Maitre Quennebert, eye and ear on the alert, had not lost a word of this
conversation, and the last proposition of the treasurer changed his
ideas.

"Pardieu!" he said to himself, "it looks as if this good man were really
going to let himself be tak