ized Lucien,
it is easy to conceive of the mad passion roused in such women, keenly
alive as they are to external gifts, and artless in their admiration.
Esther was sobbing quietly, and lay in an attitude expressive of the
deepest distress.

"But, little goose," said Lucien, "did you not understand that my life
is at stake?"

At these words, which he chose on purpose, Esther started up like a wild
animal, her hair fell, tumbling about her excited face like wreaths of
foliage. She looked steadily at Lucien.

"Your life?" she cried, throwing up her arms, and letting them drop with
a gesture known only to a courtesan in peril. "To be sure; that friend's
note speaks of serious risk."

She took a shabby scrap of paper out of her sash; then seeing Europe,
she said, "Leave us, my girl."

When Europe had shut the door she went on--"Here, this is what he
writes," and she handed to Lucien a note she had just received from
Carlos, which Lucien read aloud:--

"You must leave to-morrow at five in the morning; you will be
taken to a keeper's lodge in the heart of the Forest of
Saint-Germain, where you will have a room on the first floor. Do
not quit that room till I give you leave; you will want for nothing.
The keeper and his wife are to be trusted. Do not write to Lucien.
Do not go to the window during daylight; but you may walk by night
with the keeper if you wish for exercise. Keep the carriage blinds
down on the way. Lucien's life is at stake.

"Lucien will go to-night to bid you good-bye; burn this in his
presence."

Lucien burned the note at once in the flame of a candle.

"Listen, my own Lucien," said Esther, after hearing him read this letter
as a criminal hears the sentence of death; "I will not tell you that
I love you; it would be idiotic. For nearly five years it has been as
natural to me to love you as to breathe and live. From the first day
when my happiness began under the protection of that inscrutable being,
who placed me here as you place some little curious beast in a cage, I
have known that you must marry. Marriage is a necessary factor in your
career, and God preserve me from hindering the development of your
fortunes.

"That marriage will be my death. But I will not worry you; I will not
do as the common girls do who kill themselves by means of a brazier
of charcoal; I had enough of that once; twice raises your gorge, as
Mariette says. No, I will go a long way off, out of Franc