fact that I am living with him. It is folly no doubt, but I love him.
What would you have me do? And then, now that he has got accustomed to
be always with me, he would suffer too cruelly if he had to leave me so
much as an hour a day. Besides, I have not such a long time to live that
I need make myself miserable in order to please an old man whose very
sight makes me feel old. Let him keep his money; I will do without it."

"But what will you do?"

"I don't in the least know."

Prudence was no doubt going to make some reply, but I entered suddenly
and flung myself at Marguerite's feet, covering her hands with tears in
my joy at being thus loved.

"My life is yours, Marguerite; you need this man no longer. Am I not
here? Shall I ever leave you, and can I ever repay you for the happiness
that you give me? No more barriers, my Marguerite; we love; what matters
all the rest?"

"Oh yes, I love you, my Armand," she murmured, putting her two arms
around my neck. "I love you as I never thought I should ever love. We
will be happy; we will live quietly, and I will say good-bye forever to
the life for which I now blush. You won't ever reproach me for the past?
Tell me!"

Tears choked my voice. I could only reply by clasping Marguerite to my
heart.

"Well," said she, turning to Prudence, and speaking in a broken voice,
"you can report this scene to the duke, and you can add that we have no
longer need of him."

From that day forth the duke was never referred to. Marguerite was no
longer the same woman that I had known. She avoided everything that
might recall to me the life which she had been leading when I first
met her. Never did wife or sister surround husband or brother with
such loving care as she had for me. Her nature was morbidly open to all
impressions and accessible to all sentiments. She had broken equally
with her friends and with her ways, with her words and with her
extravagances. Any one who had seen us leaving the house to go on the
river in the charming little boat which I had bought would never have
believed that the woman dressed in white, wearing a straw hat, and
carrying on her arm a little silk pelisse to protect her against the
damp of the river, was that Marguerite Gautier who, only four months
ago, had been the talk of the town for the luxury and scandal of her
existence.

Alas, we made haste to be happy, as if we knew that we were not to be
happy long.

For two months we had not even been t