Gardeur de Repentigny would have manifested over the least of the favors
which she had lavished in vain upon the inscrutable Intendant. At such
moments she cursed her evil star, which had led her astray to listen to
the promptings of ambition and to ask fatal counsel of La Corriveau.

Le Gardeur was now in the swift downward road of destruction. This was
the one thing that caused Angelique a human pang. She might yet fail
in all her ambitious prospects, and have to fall back upon her first
love,--when even that would be too late to save Le Gardeur or to save
her.

De Pean rode fast up the Rue St. Louis, not unobservant of the dark
looks of the Honnetes Gens or the familiar nods and knowing smiles of
the partisans of the Friponne whom he met on the way.

Before the door of the mansion of the Chevalier des Meloises he saw
a valet of the Intendant holding his master's horse, and at the broad
window, half hid behind the thick curtains, sat Bigot and Angelique
engaged in badinage and mutual deceiving, as De Pean well knew.

Her silvery laugh struck his ear as he drew up. He cursed them both;
but fear of the Intendant, and a due regard to his own interests, two
feelings never absent from the Chevalier De Pean, caused him to ride on,
not stopping as he had intended.

He would ride to the end of the Grande Allee and return. By that time
the Intendant would be gone, and she would be at liberty to receive his
invitation for a ride to-morrow, when they would visit the Cathedral and
the market.

De Pean knew enough of the ways of Angelique to see that she aimed at
the hand of the Intendant. She had slighted and vilipended himself even,
while accepting his gifts and gallantries. But with a true appreciation
of her character, he had faith in the ultimate power of money, which
represented to her, as to most women, position, dress, jewels, stately
houses, carriages, and above all, the envy and jealousy of her own sex.

These things De Pean had wagered on the head of Angelique against
the wild love of Le Gardeur, the empty admiration of Bigot, and the
flatteries of the troop of idle gentlemen who dawdled around her.

He felt confident that in the end victory would be his, and the fair
Angelique would one day lay her hand in his as the wife of Hugues de
Pean.

De Pean knew that in her heart she had no love for the Intendant, and
the Intendant no respect for her. Moreover, Bigot would not venture to
marry the Queen of Sheba with