me point
blank if I was the baron; had you done so, I think I should have
confessed all, for it was very hard to restrain myself this morning."

"No, not yet; I have more questions;" and Helen warned him away, as it
became evident that he no longer considered restraint necessary.

"Who is Ludmilla?" she said, sharply.

"My faith, that is superb!" exclaimed the baron, with a triumphant
smile at her betrayal of jealousy. "How if she is a former love?" he
asked, with a sly look at her changing face.

"It would cause me no surprise; I am prepared for anything."

"How if she is my dearest sister, for whom I sent, that she might
welcome you and bring the greetings of my parents to their new
daughter?"

"Is it, indeed, so?"

And Helen's eyes dimmed as the thought of parents, home and love
filled her heart with tenderest gratitude, for she had long been an
orphan.

"_Leibchen_, it is true; to-morrow you shall see how dear you already
are to them, for I write often and they wait eagerly to receive you."

Helen felt herself going very fast, and made an effort to harden her
heart, lest too easy victory should reward this audacious lover.

"I may not go; I also have friends, and in England we are not won in
this wild way. I will yet prove you false; it will console me for
being so duped if I can call you traitor. You said Casimer had fought
in Poland."

"Crudest of women, he did, but under his own name, Sidney Power."

"Then, he was not the brave Stanislas?--and there is no charming
Casimer?"

"Yes, there are both,--his and my friends, in Paris; true Poles, and
when we go there you shall see them."

"But his illness was a ruse?"

"No; he was wounded in the war and has been ill since. Not of a fatal
malady, I own; his cough misled you, and _he_ has no scruples in
fabling to any extent. I am not to bear the burden of his sins."

"Then, the romances he told us about your charity, your virtues,
and--your love of liberty were false?" said Helen, with a keen glance,
for these tales had done much to interest her in the unknown baron.

Sudden color rose to his forehead, and for the first time his eyes
fell before hers,--not in shame, but with a modest man's annoyance at
hearing himself praised.

"Sidney is enthusiastic in his friendship, and speaks too well for me.
The facts are true, but he doubtless glorified the simplest by his
way of telling it. Will you forgive my follies, and believe me when I
promise to play