sad presentiment which fate
was preparing for them both. At last Norbert felt that he must break
the silence, for the servants were beginning to gaze upon them with eyes
full of curiosity.

"What, madame, you here, in Paris?" said he with an effort.

She had drawn out a slender hand from the mass of furs in which she was
enveloped, and extended it to him, as she replied in a tone which had a
ring of tenderness beneath its commonplace tone,--

"Yes, we are established here, and I hope that we shall be as good
friends as we were once before. Farewell, until we meet again."

As if her words had been a signal, the coachman struck his horses
lightly with his whip, and the magnificent equipage rolled swiftly
away. Norbert had not accepted Diana's proffered hand, but presently he
realized the whole scene, and plunging his spurs into his horse dashed
furiously up the Avenue in the direction of the Arc de Triomphe.

"Ah!" said he, as a bitter pang of despair shot through his heart, "I
still love her, and can never care for any one else; but I will see her
again. She has not forgotten me. I could read it in her eyes, and detect
it all in the tones of her voice." Here a momentary gleam of reason
crossed his brain. "But will a woman like Diana ever forgive an offence
like mine? and when she seems most friendly the danger is the more
near."

Unfortunately he thrust aside this idea, and refused to listen to
the voice of reason. That evening he went down to his club with the
intention of asking a few questions regarding the Mussidans. He heard
enough to satisfy himself, and the next day he met Madame de Mussidan
in the Champs Elysees, and for many days afterwards in rapid succession.
Each day they exchanged a few words, and at last Diana, with much
simulated hesitation, promised to alight from her carriage when next
they met in the Bois, and talk to Norbert unhampered by the presence of
the domestics.

Madame de Mussidan had made the appointment for three o'clock, but
before two Norbert was on the spot, in a fever of expectation and doubt.

"Is it I," asked he of himself, "waiting once more for Diana, as I have
so often waited for her at Bevron?"

Ah, how many changes had taken place since then! He was now no longer
waiting for Diana de Laurebourg, but for the Countess de Mussidan,
another man's wife, while he also was a married man. It was no longer
the whim of a monomaniac that kept them apart, but the dictates of law,
h