the day. She must have a
carriage; angels of that sort have no wings. We shall find her whether
she is on the road or hidden in Paris. There is the semaphore. We can
stop her. You shall be happy. But, my dear fellow, you have made a
blunder, of which men of your energy are very often guilty. They judge
others by themselves, and do not know the point when human nature gives
way if you strain the cords too tightly. Why did you not say a word
to me sooner? I would have told you to be punctual. Good-bye till
tomorrow," he added, as Montriveau said nothing. "Sleep if you can," he
added, with a grasp of the hand.

But the greatest resources which society has ever placed at the disposal
of statesmen, kings, ministers, bankers, or any human power, in fact,
were all exhausted in vain. Neither Montriveau nor his friends could
find any trace of the Duchess. It was clear that she had entered a
convent. Montriveau determined to search, or to institute a search, for
her through every convent in the world. He must have her, even at the
cost of all the lives in a town. And in justice to this extraordinary
man, it must be said that his frenzied passion awoke to the same
ardour daily and lasted through five years. Only in 1829 did the Duc de
Navarreins hear by chance that his daughter had travelled to Spain as
Lady Julia Hopwood's maid, that she had left her service at Cadiz, and
that Lady Julia never discovered that Mlle Caroline was the illustrious
duchess whose sudden disappearance filled the minds of the highest
society of Paris.

The feelings of the two lovers when they met again on either side of the
grating in the Carmelite convent should now be comprehended to the full,
and the violence of the passion awakened in either soul will doubtless
explain the catastrophe of the story.

In 1823 the Duc de Langeais was dead, and his wife was free. Antoinette
de Navarreins was living, consumed by love, on a ledge of rock in
the Mediterranean; but it was in the Pope's power to dissolve Sister
Theresa's vows. The happiness bought by so much love might yet bloom
for the two lovers. These thoughts sent Montriveau flying from Cadiz to
Marseilles, and from Marseilles to Paris.

A few months after his return to France, a merchant brig, fitted out and
munitioned for active service, set sail from the port of Marseilles for
Spain. The vessel had been chartered by several distinguished men, most
of them Frenchmen, who, smitten with a romantic