eased to love you if I were not about to leave the world for your sake.

"ANTOINETTE."

"Dear Vidame," said the Duchess as they reached Montriveau's house, "do
me the kindness to ask at the door whether he is at home." The Vidame,
obedient after the manner of the eighteenth century to a woman's wish,
got out, and came back to bring his cousin an affirmative answer that
sent a shudder through her. She grasped his hand tightly in hers,
suffered him to kiss her on either cheek, and begged him to go at once.
He must not watch her movements nor try to protect her. "But the people
passing in the street," he objected.

"No one can fail in respect to me," she said. It was the last word
spoken by the Duchess and the woman of fashion.

The Vidame went. Mme de Langeais wrapped herself about in her cloak,
and stood on the doorstep until the clocks struck eight. The last stroke
died away. The unhappy woman waited ten, fifteen minutes; to the last
she tried to see a fresh humiliation in the delay, then her faith ebbed.
She turned to leave the fatal threshold.

"Oh, God!" the cry broke from her in spite of herself; it was the first
word spoken by the Carmelite.

Montriveau and some of his friends were talking together. He tried to
hasten them to a conclusion, but his clock was slow, and by the time he
started out for the Hotel de Langeais the Duchess was hurrying on foot
through the streets of Paris, goaded by the dull rage in her heart. She
reached the Boulevard d'Enfer, and looked out for the last time through
falling tears on the noisy, smoky city that lay below in a red mist,
lighted up by its own lamps. Then she hailed a cab, and drove away,
never to return. When the Marquis de Montriveau reached the Hotel de
Langeais, and found no trace of his mistress, he thought that he had
been duped. He hurried away at once to the Vidame, and found that worthy
gentleman in the act of slipping on his flowered dressing-gown, thinking
the while of his fair cousin's happiness.

Montriveau gave him one of the terrific glances that produced the effect
of an electric shock on men and women alike.

"Is it possible that you have lent yourself to some cruel hoax,
monsieur?" Montriveau exclaimed. "I have just come from Mme de Langeais'
house; the servants say that she is out."

"Then a great misfortune has happened, no doubt," returned the Vidame,
"and through your fault. I left the Duchess