u not remain in Bretagne with the
others?"

"The others are arrested also, Helene."

"Then you have been denounced--betrayed."

"Probably--but sit down, Helene; now that we are alone, let me look at
you, and tell you that you are beautiful, that I love you. How have you
been in my absence--has the duke--"

"Oh! if you only knew how good he is to me; every evening he comes to
see me, and his care and attention--"

"And," said Gaston, who thought of the suggestion of the false La
Jonquiere, "nothing suspicious in those attentions?"

"What do you mean, Gaston?"

"That the duke is still young, and that, as I told you just now, you are
beautiful."

"Oh, Heaven! no! Gaston; this time there is not a shadow of doubt; and
when he was there near me--as near as you are now--there were moments
when it seemed as if I had found my father."

"Poor child!"

"Yes, by a strange chance, for which I cannot account, there is a
resemblance between the duke's voice and that of the man who came to see
me at Rambouillet--it struck me at once."

"You think so?" said Gaston, in an abstracted tone.

"What are you thinking of, Gaston?" asked Helene; "you seem scarcely to
hear what I am saying to you."

"Helene, every word you speak goes to the inmost depth of my heart."

"You are uneasy, I understand. To conspire is to stake your life; but be
easy, Gaston--I have told the duke that if you die I shall die too."

Gaston started.

"You are an angel," said he.

"Oh, my God!" cried poor Helene, "how horrible to know that the man I
love runs a danger--all the more terrible for being uncertain; to feel
that I am powerless to aid him, and that I can only shed tears when I
would give my life to save him."

Gaston's face lit up with a flush of joy; it was the first time that he
had ever heard such words from the lips of his beloved; and under the
influence of an idea which had been occupying him for some minutes--

"Yes, dearest," said he, taking her hand, "you can do much for me."

"What can I do?"

"You can become my wife."

Helene started.

"I your wife, Gaston?" cried she.

"Yes, Helene; this plan, formed in our liberty, may be executed in
captivity. Helene, my wife before God and man, in this world and the
next, for time and for eternity. You can do this for me, Helene, and am
I not right in saying that you can do much?"

"Gaston," said she, looking at him fixedly, "you are hiding something
from me."

It was Gaston's