what--what are we to do!" he murmured passionately; her
feelings of rest and peace and safety were not for him.

"Your father is very good, and loves you," he said. "At least we know
that he will not have you sacrificed. I will ask him. If he
refuses--then, mille tonnerres, I will carry you off into the woods,
Helene."

"It is no use asking him, dearest, none," she said. "Besides, you told
them all that you did not care for me."

She lifted her head, and tried to look into his face.

"Ah, did they tell you that? Was that why you were angry?" Angelot
cried.

"Yes," she said; "and now you had better ask to be forgiven."

Indeed, as they both knew too well, there were more serious things than
kisses and loving words to occupy that stolen half-hour. They had to
tell each other all--all they knew--and each became a little wiser.
Helene knew that General Ratoneau had actually asked for her, and that
her father had refused to listen; thus realising that her mother was
deceiving her, and also that for some hidden reason the plan seemed to
Madame de Sainfoy still possible. Angelot, even as they sat there
together, realised vividly that he was living in a fool's paradise; that
his love's confession to her mother had made things incalculably worse,
justifying all the stern treatment, the violent means, which such a
mother might think necessary.

"She means to marry her to Ratoneau," he thought, "and she will do it,
unless Heaven interferes by a miracle. Uncle Joseph is my only friend,
and he cannot help me--at least--if I do not act at once, we are lost."

He lifted Helene's fair head a little, and its pale beauty, in the dim
gleam from the open window, seemed to fill his whole being as he gazed.
He drew her towards him and kissed her again and again; it might have
been a last embrace, a last good-bye, but he did not mean it for that.

"Will you come with me now?" he said.

"Yes!" Helene said faintly.

"Are you afraid?"

"No"--she hesitated--"not with you. I can be brave when I am with
you--but when you are not here--"

"They shall not part us again," Angelot said.

"But how are we to get out?"

Though her lover was there, still holding her, the girl trembled as she
asked the question.

"I can unbar the door," he said. "Come to the top of the stairs and wait
there till I whistle; then come down to me."

This seemed enough for the moment, and the wild fellow had no further
plan at all. To have her outside thes