alf that bleated so prettily on its way to the
butcher's! And I would lock you up, and save your life, I thought, until
the blood-letting was over. Now you have it, M. de Tignonville, and I
hope you like it."

Like it, when every word she uttered stripped him of the selfish
illusions in which he had wrapped himself against the blasts of
ill-fortune? Like it, when the prospect of her charms had bribed him
from the path of fortitude, when for her sake he had been false to his
mistress, to his friends, to his faith, to his cause? Like it, when he
knew as he listened that all was lost, and nothing gained, not even this
poor, unworthy, shameful compensation? Like it? No wonder that words
failed him, and he glared at her in rage, in misery, in shame.

"Oh, if you don't like it," she continued, tossing her head after a
momentary pause, "then you should not have come! It is of no profit to
glower at me, Monsieur. You do not frighten me."

"I would--I would to God I had not come!" he groaned.

"And, I dare say, that you had never seen me--since you cannot win me!"

"That too," he exclaimed.

She was of an extraordinary levity, and at that, after staring at him a
moment, she broke into shrill laughter.

"A little more, and I'll send you to my cousin Hannibal!" she said. "You
do not know how anxious he is to see you. Have you a mind," with a
waggish look, "to play bride's man, M. de Tignonville? Or will you give
away the bride? It is not too late, though soon it will be!"

He winced, and from red grew pale. "What do you mean?" he stammered;
and, averting his eyes in shame, seeing now all the littleness, all the
baseness of his position, "Has he--married her?" he continued.

"Ho, ho!" she cried in triumph. "I've hit you now, have I, Monsieur?
I've hit you!" And mocking him, "Has he--married her?" she lisped. "No;
but he will marry her, have no fear of that! He will marry her. He
waits but to get a priest. Would you like to see what he says?" she
continued, playing with him as a cat plays with a mouse. "I had a note
from him yesterday. Would you like to see how welcome you'll be at the
wedding?" And she flaunted a piece of paper before his eyes.

"Give it me," he said.

She let him seize it the while she shrugged her shoulders. "It's your
affair, not mine," she said. "See it if you like, and keep it if you
like. Cousin Hannibal wastes few words."

That was true, for the paper contained but a doz