Still astonished, almost appalled, by her vehemence, St. Georges took
the hand she extended him and bent over it, and next, that of her
daughter, ere the two passed out of the room.

"Forgive," said the marquise, "that I should feel so strongly.
I--I--have a child myself." Then, after a pause, and turning round as
she reached the corridor, she added: "If we do not meet to-morrow ere
you return to the city to fetch your child, remember, sir, I pray you,
that my answer to the king or his minister is precisely different from
that of the bishop. It is 'No.'"

"I will remember, madame."

Then, with a last glance from each, both were gone. And St. Georges,
standing in front of the great fireplace waiting for the old servitor
to come and escort him to his room, was more overwhelmed with
amazement than he had been at aught which had occurred since he set
out from Pontarlier.

"What does it mean?" he whispered to himself. "What does it mean?"

* * * * *

In a room at the opposite end of the corridor from that where the
apartment was situated which had been bestowed on St. Georges, the
mother and daughter sat. It was the sleeping-room of madame la
marquise, large, vast, and sombre--save that here, too, a fire burnt
in the grate, and that there were many candles alight in the sconces
set about the room.

And the marquise, lying back in her deep fauteuil before the fire, her
face white and drawn, and with tears upon her cheeks, was speaking to
her daughter who knelt by her side.

"The wolf!" she said, "the wolf! How know it? How find out? God! I
thought that I alone, of all living people, knew, until I divulged my
story to you, until I wrote to Louis asking him to do justice to a
much-wronged man. Who--who has betrayed my confidence? Not the king,
surely. Oh! not he, not he! Nay, more, I doubt if the letter ever
reached his hands."

"Mother," Aurelie said, as she stroked her hand, "there must be some
other who knows."

"There was no living soul on earth. Listen, even you do not know all."

The girl seated herself against her mother's knee and gazed up into
her face. Then she whispered: "Tell me all now, mother. From to-night
let me understand exactly with what he is encompassed. Tell me, I
beg."

"You know," the marquise said, "for I have told you often, that the
Duc de Vannes and I loved each other when we were young--yet that we
never married. No matter for the reason now--it was my