that better; I shall die of fear here."

"Very well, meet me in five minutes at the gate which opens on the
boulevard. I will fetch a cab."

When they were seated in the cab, she asked: "Where did you tell the
coachman to drive to?"

Georges replied: "Do not worry; he knows."

He had given the man his address on the Rue de Constantinople.

Mme. Walter said to Du Roy: "You cannot imagine how I suffer on your
account--how I am tormented, tortured. Yesterday I was harsh, but I
wanted to escape you at any price. I was afraid to remain alone with
you. Have you forgiven me?"

He pressed her hand. "Yes, yes, why should I not forgive you, loving
you as I do?"

She looked at him with a beseeching air: "Listen: You must promise to
respect me, otherwise I could never see you again."

At first he did not reply; a smile lurked beneath his mustache; then he
murmured: "I am your slave."

She told him how she had discovered that she loved him, on learning
that he was to marry Madeleine Forestier. Suddenly she ceased speaking.
The carriage stopped. Du Roy opened the door.

"Where are we?" she asked.

He replied: "Alight and enter the house. We shall be undisturbed there."

"Where are we?" she repeated.

"At my rooms; they are my bachelor apartments which I have rented for a
few days that we might have a corner in which to meet."

She clung to the cab, startled at the thought of a tete-a-tete, and
stammered: "No, no, I do not want to."

He said firmly: "I swear to respect you. Come, you see that people are
looking at us, that a crowd is gathering around us. Make haste!" And he
repeated, "I swear to respect you."

She was terror-stricken and rushed into the house. She was about to
ascend the stairs. He seized her arm: "It is here, on the ground floor."

When he had closed the door, he showered kisses upon her neck, her
eyes, her lips; in spite of herself, she submitted to his caresses and
even returned them, hiding her face and murmuring in broken accents: "I
swear that I have never had a lover"; while he thought: "That is a
matter of indifference to me."

CHAPTER XIII.

MADAME DE MARELLE

Autumn had come. The Du Roys had spent the entire summer in Paris,
leading a vigorous campaign in "La Vie Francaise," in favor of the new
cabinet. Although it was only the early part of October, the chamber
was about to resume its sessions, for affairs in Morocco were becoming
menacing. The celebrated speech made by Co