lick together. 'Would you have me
fawn on you?'

'Perhaps not,' I answered. 'Still you make one mistake.'

'What is it?' she panted.

'You forget that I am to be feared as well as--loathed, Mademoiselle!
Ay, Mademoiselle, to be feared!' I continued grimly. 'Do you think that
I do not know why you are here in this guise? Do you think that I do not
know for whom that pitcher of broth was intended? Or who will now have
to fast to-night? I tell you I know all these things. Your house was
full of soldiers; your servants were watched and could not leave. You
had to come yourself and get food for him?'

She clutched at the handrail of the bridge, and for an instant clung
to it for support. Her face, from which the shawl had fallen, glimmered
white in the shadow of the trees. At last I had shaken her pride. At
last!

'What is your price?' she murmured faintly.

'I am going to tell you,' I replied, speaking so that every word might
fall distinctly on her ears, and sating my eyes the while on her proud
face. I had never dreamed of such revenge as this! 'About a fortnight
ago, M. de Cocheforet left here at night with a little orange-coloured
sachet in his possession.'

She uttered a stifled cry, and drew herself stiffly erect.

'It contained--but there, Mademoiselle, you know its contents,' I went
on. 'Whatever they were, M. de Cocheforet lost it and them at starting.
A week ago he came back--unfortunately for himself--to seek them.'

She was looking full in my face now. She seemed scarcely to breathe in
the intensity of her surprise and expectation.

'You had a search made, Mademoiselle,' I continued quietly. 'Your
servants left no place unexplored The paths, the roads, the very woods
were ransacked, But in vain, because all the while the orange sachet lay
whole and unopened in my pocket.'

'No!' she cried impetuously. 'There, you lie sir, as usual! The sachet
was found, torn open, many leagues from this place!'

'Where I threw it, Mademoiselle,' I replied, 'that I might mislead your
rascals and be free to return to you. Oh! believe me,' I continued,
letting something of my true self, something of my triumph, appear at
last in my voice. 'You have made a mistake! You would have done better
had you trusted me. I am no bundle of sawdust, Mademoiselle, though once
you got the better of me, but a man; a man with an arm to shield and a
brain to serve, and--as I am going to teach you--a heart also!'

She shivered.

'In