felt, that she could sacrifice anything except herself
for his sake.

Angelique pondered in her own strange, fitful way over Le Gardeur. She
had no thought of losing him wholly. She would continue to hold him in
her silken string, and keep him under the spell of her fascinations.
She still admired him,--nay, loved him, she thought. She could not help
doing so; and if she could not help it, where was the blame? She would
not, to be sure, sacrifice for him the brilliant hopes which danced
before her imagination like fire-flies in a summer night--for no man in
the world would she do that! The Royal Intendant was the mark she aimed
at. She was ready to go through fire and water to reach that goal of her
ambition. But if she gave the Intendant her hand it was enough; it was
all she could give him, but not the smallest corner of her heart, which
she acknowledged to herself belonged only to Le Gardeur de Repentigny.

While bent on accomplishing this scheme by every means in her power, and
which involved necessarily the ruin of Le Gardeur, she took a sort of
perverse pride in enumerating the hundred points of personal and moral
superiority possessed by him over the Intendant and all others of her
admirers. If she sacrificed her love to her ambition, hating herself
while she did so, it was a sort of satisfaction to think that Le
Gardeur's sacrifice was not less complete than her own; and she rather
felt pleased with the reflection that his heart would be broken, and no
other woman would ever fill that place in his affections which she had
once occupied.

The days that elapsed after their final interview were days of vexation
to Angelique. She was angry with herself, almost; angry with Le Gardeur
that he had taken her at her word, and still more angry that she did not
reap the immediate reward of her treachery against her own heart. She
was like a spoiled and wilful child which will neither have a thing nor
let it go. She would discard her lover and still retain his love! and
felt irritated and even jealous when she heard of his departure to Tilly
with his sister, who had thus, apparently, more influence to take him
away from the city than Angelique had to keep him there.

But her mind was especially worked upon almost to madness by the ardent
professions of love, with the careful avoidance of any proposal of
marriage, on the part of the Intendant. She had received his daily
visits with a determination to please and fascinate