ing."

He looked at his watch: it was twelve o'clock.

"Which, however," he added, "did not keep me from going to sleep."

All the doubts that besieged him at the moment when he had been
overcome by sleep now came back to his mind with painful vividness.

"And not only have I been sleeping," he went on, "but I have been
dreaming too."

Mlle. Lucienne fixed upon him her great black eyes.

"Can you tell me your dream?" she asked.

He hesitated. Had he had but one minute to reflect, perhaps he
would not have spoken; but he was taken unawares.

"I dreamed," he replied, "that we were friends in the noblest and
purest acceptance of that word. Intelligence, heart, will, all that
I am, and all that I can,--I laid every thing at your feet. You
accepted the most entire devotion, the most respectful and the most
tender that man is capable of. Yes, we were friends indeed; and
upon a glimpse of love, never expressed, I planned a whole future
of love." He stopped.

"Well?" she asked.

"Well, when my hopes seemed on the point of being realized, it
happened that the mystery of your birth was suddenly revealed to
you. You found a noble, powerful, and wealthy family. You resumed
the illustrious name of which you had been robbed; your enemies were
crushed; and your rights were restored to you. It was no longer
Van Klopen's hired carriage that stopped in front of the Hotel des
Folies, but a carriage bearing a gorgeous coat of arms. That
carriage was yours; and it came to take you to your own residence
in the Faubourg St. Germain, or to your ancestral manor."

"And yourself?" inquired the girl.

Maxence repressed one of those nervous spasms which frequently break
out in tears, and, with a gloomy look,

"I," he answered, "standing on the edge of the pavement, I waited
for a word or a look from you. You had forgotten my very existence.
Your coachman whipped his horses; they started at a gallop; and soon
I lost sight of you. And then a voice, the inexorable voice of fate,
cried to me, 'Never more shalt thou see her!'"

With a superb gesture Mlle. Lucienne drew herself up.

"It is not with your heart, I trust, that you judge
me, M. Maxence Favoral," she uttered.

He trembled lest he had offended her.

"I beseech you," he began.

But she went on in a voice vibrating with emotion,

"I am not of those who basely deny their past. Your dream will
never be realized. Those things are only seen on the stage. If
i