ion. She accepted his love, but she could no more contain the
fulness of his overflowing affection than the pitcher that is held to
the fountain can contain the stream that gushes forth perpetually.

Angelique was ALMOST carried away from her purpose, however. Had her
heart asserted its rightful supremacy--that is, had nature fashioned it
larger and warmer--she had there and then thrown herself into his arms
and blessed him by the consent he sought. She felt assured that here was
the one man God had made for her, and she was cruelly sacrificing him to
a false idol of ambition and vanity. The word he pleaded for hovered
on her tongue, ready like a bird to leap down into his bosom; but she
resolutely beat it back into its iron cage.

The struggle was the old one--old as the race of man. In the losing
battle between the false and true, love rarely comes out of that
conflict unshorn of life or limb. Untrue to him, she was true to her
selfish self. The thought of the Intendant and the glories of
life opening to her closed her heart, not to the pleadings of Le
Gardeur,--them she loved,--but to the granting of his prayer.

The die was cast, but she still clasped hard his hand in hers, as if she
could not let him go. "And will you do all you say, Le Gardeur--make
my will your law, my pleasure your conscience, and let me be to you all
reason and motive? Such devotion terrifies me, Le Gardeur?"

"Try me! Ask of me the hardest thing, nay, the wickedest, that
imagination can conceive or hands do--and I would perform it for your
sake." Le Gardeur was getting beside himself. The magic power of those
dark, flashing eyes of hers was melting all the fine gold of his nature
to folly.

"Fie!" replied she, "I do not ask you to drink the sea: a small thing
would content me. My love is not so exacting as that, Le Gardeur."

"Does your brother need my aid?" asked he. "If he does, he shall have
it to half my fortune for your sake!" Le Gardeur was well aware that the
prodigal brother of Angelique was in a strait for money, as was usual
with him. He had lately importuned Le Gardeur, and obtained a large sum
from him.

She looked up with well-affected indignation. "How can you think such
a thing, Le Gardeur? my brother was not in my thought. It was the
Intendant I wished to ask you about,--you know him better than I."

This was not true. Angelique had studied the Intendant in mind, person,
and estate, weighing him scruple by scruple to th