ou reproach me during the eight years
that I have had the honour of serving your Highness?"

"I have nothing to reproach you with, monsieur," replied the countess:
"but I do not wish to incur reproach on my own part by permitting such
a marriage: I thought you too sensible and reasonable a man to need
reminding that, while you confined yourself to suitable requests and
moderate ambitions, you had reason to be pleased with our gratitude.
Do you ask that your salary shall be doubled? The thing is easy. Do you
desire important posts? They shall be given you; but do not, sir, so
far forget yourself as to aspire to an alliance that you cannot flatter
yourself with a hope of ever attaining."

"But, madame," returned the petitioner, "who told you that my birth was
so obscure as to debar me from all hope of obtaining your consent?"

"Why, you yourself, monsieur, I think," answered the countess in
astonishment; "or if you did not say so, your name said so for you."

"And if that name is not mine, madame?" said the abbe, growing bolder;
"if unfortunate, terrible, fatal circumstances have compelled me to take
that name in order to hide another that was too unhappily famous, would
your Highness then be so unjust as not to change your mind?"

"Monsieur," replied the countess, "you have said too much now not to
go on to the end. Who are you? Tell me. And if, as you give me to
understand, you are of good birth, I swear to you that want of fortune
shall not stand in the way."

"Alas, madame," cried the abbe, throwing himself at her feet, "my name,
I am sure, is but too familiar to your Highness, and I would willingly
at this moment give half my blood that you had never heard it uttered;
but you have said it, madame, have gone too far to recede. Well, then, I
am that unhappy abbe de Ganges whose crimes are known and of whom I have
more than once heard you speak."

"The abbe de Ganges!" cried the countess in horror,--"the abbe de
Ganges! You are that execrable abbe de Ganges whose very name makes
one shudder? And to you, to a man thus infamous, we have entrusted the
education of our only son? Oh, I hope, for all our sakes, monsieur, that
you are speaking falsely; for if you were speaking the truth I think I
should have you arrested this very instant and taken back to France to
undergo your punishment. The best thing you can do, if what you have
said to me is true, is instantly to leave not only the castle, but the
town and the pri