at the
station. We took a _coupe_, which I had engaged beforehand, and I
accompanied her in a carriage to her father's house.

"Finally, one evening, she left her friend's house at the usual hour;
but she did not return to her father's house till the day after."

"Jacques!" broke in M. Magloire, shocked, as if he had heard a
curse,--"Jacques!"

M. de Boiscoran remained unmoved.

"Oh!" he said, "I know you must think it strange. You fancy that there
is no excuse for the man who betrays the confidence of a woman who has
once given herself to him. Wait, before you judge me."

And he went on, in a firmer tone of voice,--

"At that time I thought I was the happiest man on earth; and my heart
was full of the most absurd vanity at the thought that she was mine,
this beautiful woman, whose purity was high above all calumny. I had
tied around my neck one of those fatal ropes which death alone can
sever, and, fool that I was, I considered myself happy.

"Perhaps she really loved me at that time. At least she did not
hesitate, and, overcome by the only real great passion of her life, she
told me all that was in her innermost heart. At that time she did not
think yet of protecting herself against me, and of making me her slave.
She told me the secret of her marriage, which had at one time created
such a sensation in the whole country.

"When her father, the Marquis de Brissac, had given up his place, he had
soon begun to feel his inactivity weigh upon him, and at the same time
he had become impatient at the narrowness of his means. He had ventured
upon hazardous speculations. He had lost every thing he had; and even
his honor was at stake. In his despair he was thinking of suicide, when
chance brought to his house a former comrade, Count Claudieuse. In a
moment of confidence, the marquis confessed every thing; and the other
had promised to rescue him, and save him from disgrace. That was noble
and grand. It must have cost an immense sum. And the friends of our
youth who are capable of rendering us such services are rare in our day.
Unfortunately, Count Claudieuse could not all the time be the hero he
had been at first. He saw Genevieve de Tassar. He was struck with
her beauty; and overcome by a sudden passion--forgetting that she was
twenty, while he was nearly fifty--he made his friend aware that he was
still willing to render him all the services in his power, but that he
desired to obtain Genevieve's hand in return.