le sigh of regret escaped her lips, and she said gently:

"I thank you, Sir, from the bottom of my heart, for the words of
friendship which you have spoken. I shall never forget them, never! and
if at any time in my life I am in trouble . . ."

"Which God forbid!" he broke in fervently.

"If any time I have need of a friend," she resumed, "I feel that I
should find one in you. Oh! if only I could think that you would extend
your devotion to my poor country, and to our King . . ." she exclaimed
with passionate earnestness.

"You love your country very dearly, Mademoiselle," he rejoined.

"I think that I love France more than anything else in the world," she
replied, "and I feel that there is no sacrifice which I would deem too
great to offer up for her."

"And by France you mean the Bourbon dynasty," he said almost
involuntarily, and with an impatient little sigh.

"I mean the King, by the grace of God!" she retorted proudly.

She had thrown back her head with an air of challenge as she said this,
meeting his glance eye to eye: she looked strong and wilful all of a
sudden, no longer girlish and submissive. And to the man who loved her,
this trait of power and latent heroism added yet another to the many
charms which he saw in her. Loyal to her country and to her king she
would be loyal in all things--to husband, kindred and to friends.

But he realised at the same time how impossible it would be for any man
to win her love if he were an enemy to her cause. St. Genis--royalist,
emigre, retrograde like herself--had obviously won his way to her heart
chiefly by the sympathy of his own convictions. But what of de Marmont,
to whom she was on the eve of plighting her troth? de Marmont the
hot-headed Bonapartist who owned but one god--Napoleon--and yet had
deliberately, and with cynical opportunism hidden his fanatical aims and
beliefs from the woman whom he had wooed and won?

The thought of that deception--and of the awakening which would await
the girl-wife on the very morrow of her wedding-day mayhap, was terribly
repellent to Clyffurde's straightforward, loyal nature, and bitter was
the contention within his soul as he found himself at the cross-roads of
a divided duty. Every instinct of chivalry towards the woman loudly
demanded that he should warn her--now--at once--before it was too
late--before she had actually pledged her life and future to a man whom
her very soul--if she knew the truth--would proclaim a re