lone! Doubtless she has friends--it may be
lovers--among these demons, who, under the cry of liberty, commit every
licence. Let her alone, Clement! She refused you with scorn: be too
proud to notice her new.'

"'Mother, I cannot think of myself; only of her.'

"'Think of me, then! I, your mother, forbid you to go.'

"Clement bowed low, and went out of the room instantly, as one blinded.
She saw his groping movement, and, for an instant, I think her heart was
touched. But she turned to me, and tried to exculpate her past violence
by dilating upon her wrongs, and they certainly were many. The Count,
her husband's younger brother, had invariably tried to make mischief
between husband and wife. He had been the cleverer man of the two, and
had possessed extraordinary influence over her husband. She suspected
him of having instigated that clause in her husband's will, by which the
Marquis expressed his wish for the marriage of the cousins. The Count
had had some interest in the management of the De Crequy property during
her son's minority. Indeed, I remembered then, that it was through Count
de Crequy that Lord Ludlow had first heard of the apartment which we
afterwards took in the Hotel de Crequy; and then the recollection of a
past feeling came distinctly out of the mist, as it were; and I called to
mind how, when we first took up our abode in the Hotel de Crequy, both
Lord Ludlow and I imagined that the arrangement was displeasing to our
hostess; and how it had taken us a considerable time before we had been
able to establish relations of friendship with her. Years after our
visit, she began to suspect that Clement (whom she could not forbid to
visit at his uncle's house, considering the terms on which his father had
been with his brother; though she herself never set foot over the Count
de Crequy's threshold) was attaching himself to mademoiselle, his cousin;
and she made cautious inquiries as to the appearance, character, and
disposition of the young lady. Mademoiselle was not handsome, they said;
but of a fine figure, and generally considered as having a very noble and
attractive presence. In character she was daring and wilful (said one
set); original and independent (said another). She was much indulged by
her father, who had given her something of a man's education, and
selected for her intimate friend a young lady below her in rank, one of
the Bureaucracie, a Mademoiselle Necker, daughter of the Mini