seduction employed could meet with success, and if the commander had
desired to convict her of perfidy he would have come alone and made use
of more persuasive weapons. No, he believed he still had claims on her,
but even if he had, by his manner of enforcing them he had rendered them
void. However, the moment he threatened to seek out a rival whose
identity he designated quite clearly, and reveal to him the secret it was
so necessary to her interests to keep hidden, the poor girl lost her
head. She looked at de Jars with a frightened expression, and said in a
trembling voice--

"I don't know whom you mean."

"You don't know? Well, I shall commission the king's treasurer, Jeannin
de Castille, to come here to-morrow and tell you, an hour before our
duel."

"Oh no! no! Promise me you will not do that!" cried she, clasping her
hands.

"Adieu, madame."

"Do not leave me thus! I cannot let you go till you give me your
promise!"

She threw herself on her knees and clung with both her hands to de Jars'
cloak, and appealing to Chevalier de Moranges, said--

"You are young, monsieur; I have never done you any harm; protect me,
have pity on me, help me to soften him!"

"Uncle," said the chevalier in a pleading tone, "be generous, and don't
drive this woman to despair."

"Prayers are useless!" answered the commander.

"What do you want me to do?" said Angelique. "Shall I go into a convent
to atone? I am ready to go. Shall I promise never to see him again?
For God's sake, give me a little time; put off your vengeance for one
single day! To-morrow evening, I swear to you, you will have nothing
more to fear from me. I thought myself forgotten by you and abandoned;
and how should I think otherwise? You left me without a word of
farewell, you stayed away and never sent me a line! And how do you know
that I did not weep when you deserted me, leaving me to pass my days in
monotonous solitude? How do you know that I did not make every effort to
find out why you were so long absent from my side? You say you had left
town but how was I to know that? Oh! promise me, if you love me, to give
up this duel! Promise me not to seek that man out to-morrow!"

The poor creature hoped to work wonders with her eloquence, her tears,
her pleading glances. On hearing her prayer for a reprieve of
twenty-four hours, swearing that after that she would never see Jeannin
again, the commander and the chevalier were obliged to bi