become of us?" he cried in a tone that was almost that of
anger. "Think you that I am a pauper dependent upon my uncle's bounty?
I have an estate near Palermo, which, for all that it does not yield
riches, is yet sufficient to enable us to live with dignity and comfort.
I have told Genevieve, and she is content."

I looked at his flushed face and laughed.

"Well, well!" said I. "If you are resolved upon it, it is ended."

He appeared to meditate for a moment, then--"We have decided to be
married by the Cure of St. Innocent on the day after to-morrow."

"Credieu!" I answered, with a whistle, "you have wasted no time in
determining your plans. Does Yvonne know of it?"

"We have dared tell nobody," he replied; and a moment later he added
hesitatingly, "You, I know, will not betray us."

"Do you know me so little that you doubt me on that score? Have no
fear, Andrea, I shall not speak. Besides, to-morrow, or the next day at
latest, I leave Canaples."

"You do not mean that you are returning to the Lys de France!"

"No. I am going farther than that. I am going to Paris."

"To Paris?"

"To Paris, to deliver myself up to M. de Montresor, who gave me leave to
go to Reaux some seven weeks ago."

"But it is madness, Gaston!" he ejaculated.

"All virtue is madness in a world so sinful; nevertheless I go. In a
measure I am glad that things have fallen out with you as they have
done, for when the news goes abroad that you have married Genevieve de
Canaples and left the heiress free, your enemies will vanish, and you
will have no further need of me. New enemies you will have perchance,
but in your strife with them I could lend you no help, were I by."

He sat in silence casting pebbles into the stream, and watching the
ripples they made upon the face of the waters.

"Have you told Mademoiselle?" he asked at length.

"Not yet. I shall tell her to-day. You also, Andrea, must take her into
your confidence touching your approaching marriage. That she will prove
a good friend to you I am assured."

"But what reason shall I give form my secrecy?" he inquired, and
inwardly I smiled to see how the selfishness which love begets in us had
caused him already to forget my affairs, and how the thought of his
own approaching union effaced all thought of me and the doom to which I
went.

"Give no reason," I answered. "Let Genevieve tell her of what you
contemplate, and if a reason she must have, let Genevieve bid her come
to me