ar
position, drily ordered them all off to bed at once, and left them
amazed at his readiness to accept their fellow servant's lying excuse.

While these incidents took place in the yard, an apparently trifling
occurrence had changed the relative positions of three characters in
this story. The Marquis had scarcely left the room before his wife
looked first towards the key on the mantel-shelf, and then at Helene;
and, after some wavering, bent towards her daughter and said in a low
voice, "Helene your father has left the key on the chimney-piece."

The girl looked up in surprise and glanced timidly at her mother. The
Marquise's eyes sparkled with curiosity.

"Well, mamma?" she said, and her voice had a troubled ring.

"I should like to know what is going on upstairs. If there is anybody up
there, he has not stirred yet. Just go up--"

"_I_?" cried the girl, with something like horror in her tones.

"Are you afraid?"

"No, mamma, but I thought I heard a man's footsteps."

"If I could go myself, I should not have asked you to go, Helene," said
her mother with cold dignity. "If your father were to come back and did
not see me, he would go to look for me perhaps, but he would not notice
your absence."

"Madame, if you bid me go, I will go," said Helene, "but I shall lose my
father's good opinion--"

"What is this!" cried the Marquise in a sarcastic tone. "But since you
take a thing that was said in joke in earnest, I now _order_ you to go
upstairs and see who is in the room above. Here is the key, child. When
your father told you to say nothing about this thing that happened, he
did not forbid you to go up to the room. Go at once--and learn that a
daughter ought never to judge her mother."

The last words were spoken with all the severity of a justly offended
mother. The Marquise took the key and handed it to Helene, who rose
without a word and left the room.

"My mother can always easily obtain her pardon," thought the girl; "but
as for me, my father will never think the same of me again. Does she
mean to rob me of his tenderness? Does she want to turn me out of his
house?"

These were the thoughts that set her imagination in a sudden ferment, as
she went down the dark passage to the mysterious door at the end. When
she stood before it, her mental confusion grew to a fateful pitch.
Feelings hitherto forced down into inner depths crowded up at the
summons of these confused thoughts. Perhaps hitherto she had