and the young stranger, she was not
told the secret of the affair until long afterward.

Strange to say, although the Judge was much the older man, and was
wounded much nearer the heart, he recovered and was walking about in his
house before Coleman had even taken a turn for the better. The first
thing he did was to order his daughter to cease her nursing of the young
man.

"It is not proper," he said, "for a young girl to be the nurse of a man
who is a stranger."

Mlle. Olympe blushed scarlet, and was so much confused that she could
not find a word to say. It had been a great pleasure to her to wait upon
Coleman, who, though for the greater part of the time quite insensible
of her presence, seemed to respond better to her care than to the
treatment of the doctors. She had been having her sweet dream, was in
love with him, indeed, and the command of her father struck her like a
blow.

Judge Favart de Caumartin suspected the truth about his daughter, and
was not slow in making up his mind in the matter. He gave strict orders
that the hall between Coleman's rooms and the rest of the mansion should
be kept at all times locked and barred.

Love laughs at such precautions. Hepworth Coleman, during his
convalescence, lay on his back and thought of nobody but Mlle. Olympe,
and when at last he was able to get up he sent for her. It so chanced
that the Judge, having got well in a measure, was gone up to Natchez on
business.

Mlle. Olympe did not go to see the young man; but she wrote him a note
explaining her father's wishes.

"But he has never forbidden you to come to see me when you are able to
walk so far as to the library," she added very frankly, "and I see no
reason why you should stay away."

When the Judge returned it was too late to interfere, as he soon
discovered, and he had to bow to the inevitable.

The mystery of the adventure with the masked men in that secret _salle_
has never been further explained. Judge Favart de Caumartin would not
consent to his daughter's marriage until he had exacted a promise from
Coleman that he would never divulge what he knew.

The truth was that Coleman knew very little. He tried to discover the
blind alley into which the Judge had led him on that eventful evening,
but there was no such alley to discover. The whereabouts of the
mysterious hall cannot be pointed out to-day, although from that
memorable Tuesday in the spring of 1820 up to the Mardi-Gras of 1891,
every ann