who is my only friend in this place?"

"Mademoiselle de Barras, I need no declamation from you; and, pardon me,
Mrs. Marston, nor from you either," retorted he; "I have my information
from one on whom I can rely; let that suffice. Of course you are both
agreed in a story. I dare say you are ready to swear you never so much as
canvassed my conduct, and my coldness and estrangement--eh? These are the
words, are not they?"

"I have done you no wrong, sir; madame can tell you. I am no
mischief-maker; no, I never was such a thing. Was I, madame?" persisted
the governess--"bear witness for me?"

"I have told you my mind, Mademoiselle de Barras," interrupted Marston;
"I will have no altercation, if you please. I think, Mrs. Marston, we
have had enough of this; may I accompany you hence?"

So saying, he took the poor lady's passive hand, and led her from the
room. Mademoiselle stood in the center of the apartment, alone, erect,
with heaving breast and burning cheek--beautiful, thoughtful, guilty--the
very type of the fallen angelic. There for a time, her heart all
confusion, her mind darkened, we must leave her; various courses before
her, and as yet without resolution to choose among them; a lost spirit,
borne on the eddies of the storm; fearless and self-reliant, but with no
star to guide her on her dark, malign, and forlorn way.

Mrs. Marston, in her own room, reviewed the agitating scene through which
she had just been so unexpectedly carried. The tremendous suspicion
which, at the first disclosure of the tableau we have described, smote
the heart and brain of the poor lady with the stun of a thunderbolt, had
been, indeed, subsequently disturbed, and afterwards contradicted; but
the shock of her first impression remained still upon her mind and heart.
She felt still through every nerve the vibrations of that maddening
terror and despair which had overcome her senses for a moment. The
surprise, the shock, the horror, outlived the obliterating influence of
what followed. She was in this agitation when Mademoiselle de Barras
entered her chamber, resolved with all her art to second and support the
success of her prompt measures in the recent critical emergency. She had
come, she said, to bid her dear madame farewell, for she was resolved to
go. Her own room had been invaded, that insult and reproach might be
heaped upon her; how utterly unmerited Mrs. Marston knew. She had been
called by every foul name which applied to th