lor came and
went more than once.

"Will Madame Le Prun be so kind as to sit down here for a few minutes,
and I will convince her that I have kept those secrets well, and that I
am--I dare not say her friend--but the most devoted of her servants?"

Madame Le Prun sat down upon the marble couch that stood there, carved
with doves and Cupids, and embowered, in the transparent shadows of
myrtle, like a throne of Venus. Blassemare fancied that he had never
beheld so beautiful and piquante an image as Lucille at that moment
presented: her cheeks glowing, her long lashes half dropped over the
quenched fires of her proud dark eyes; her countenance full of a
confusion that was at once beautiful and sinister; one hand laid upon
her heart, as if to quell its beatings, and shut with an expression half
defiant, half irresolute--and the pretty fingers of the other
unconsciously playing with the tendrils of a pavenche.

Blassemare enjoyed this pretty picture too much to disturb it by a word.
Perhaps, too, there was comfort to his vanity in the spectacle of her
humiliation; at all events he suffered some time to pass before he spoke
to her. When he did, it was with a great deal of respect; for
Blassemare, notwithstanding his coarseness, had a sufficiency of tact.

"Madame perceives that I am not without discretion and zeal in her
service."

"Sir, you speak enigmas; you talk of secrets and provocation; and while
you affect an air of deference, your meaning is full of insolence."

It was plain her pride was mastering her fears, Blassemare thought it
high time to lower his key. He therefore said, with a confident smile
and an easy air--

"My meaning may be disagreeable, but that is chargeable not upon _me_,
but on the _circumstances_ of our retrospect; and if I am enigmatical
rather than explicit, I am so from respect, not insolence. My dear
madame, on the honor of a gentleman, I saw Monsieur le Marquis de
Secqville take his abrupt departure from your window--you understand. I
not only saw him, but found and retained proofs of his identity, armed
with which, I taxed him with the fact, and obtained his full confession.
_Now_, madame, perhaps you will give me credit for something better than
hypocrisy and insolence."

Lucille looked thunderstruck for a moment, then rising, she darted on
him a glance of rage and defiance, and overpowered by the tumult within
her, she burst into a flood of tears, and covering her face with her
hand