ing. 'You did not expect to see me?'

'I expected to see no one so little, Mademoiselle,' I answered, striving
to recover my composure.

'Yet you might have thought that we should not utterly desert you,' she
replied, with a reproachful humility which went to my heart. 'We should
have been base indeed, if we had not made some attempt to save you.
I thank Heaven, M. de Berault, that it has so far succeeded that that
strange man has promised me your life. You have seen him?' she continued
eagerly and in another tone, while her eyes grew on a sudden large with
fear.

'Yes, Mademoiselle,' I said. 'I have seen him, and it is true, He has
given me my life.'

'And--?'

'And sent me into imprisonment.'

'For how long?' she whispered.

'I do not know,' I answered. 'I fear during the King's pleasure.'

She shuddered.

'I may have done more harm than good,' she murmured, looking at me
piteously. 'But I did it for the best. I told him all, and perhaps I did
harm.'

But to hear her accuse herself thus, when she had made this long and
lonely journey to save me, when she had forced herself into her enemy's
presence, and had, as I was sure she had, abased herself for me, was
more than I could bear.

'Hush, Mademoiselle, hush!' I said, almost roughly. 'You hurt me. You
have made me happy; and yet I wish that you were not here, where, I
fear, you have few friends, but back at Cocheforet. You have done more
for me than I expected, and a hundred times more than I deserved. But
it must end here. I was a ruined man before this happened, before I ever
saw you. I am no worse now, but I am still that; and I would not have
your name pinned to mine on Paris lips. Therefore, good-bye. God forbid
I should say more to you, or let you stay where foul tongues would soon
malign you.'

She looked at me in a kind of wonder; then, with a growing smile,--

'It is too late,' she said gently.

'Too late?' I exclaimed. 'How, Mademoiselle?'

'Because--do you remember, M. de Berault, what you told me of your
love-story under the guide-post by Agen? That it could have no happy
ending? For the same reason I was not ashamed to tell mine to the
Cardinal. By this time it is common property.'

I looked at her as she stood facing me. Her eyes shone under the lashes
that almost hid them. Her figure drooped, and yet a smile trembled on
her lips.

'What did you tell him, Mademoiselle?' I whispered, my breath coming
quickly.

'That I loved,' she