lace within a month
at the furthest.

That evening, when Rose Faverney was admitted to the young lord's
presence, through the agency of the enamored Jules, she brought him
permission to visit her lady at midnight in her own chamber; and she
brought with her a plan, sketched by Melanie's own hand, of the
garden, through which, by the aid of a master-key and a rope-ladder,
he was to gain access to her presence.

"My lady says, Monsieur Raoul," added the merry girl, with a light
laugh, "that she admits you only on the faith that you will keep the
word which you plighted to her, when last you met, and on the
condition that I shall be present at all your interviews with her."

"Her honor were safe in my hands," replied the young man, "without
that precaution. But I appreciate the motive, and accept the
condition."

"You will remember, then, my lord--at midnight. There will be one
light burning in the window, when that is extinguished, all will be
safe, and you may enter fearless. Will you remember?"

"Nothing but death shall prevent me. Nor that, if the spirits of the
dead may visit what they love best on earth. So tell her, Rose.
Farewell!"

Four hours afterward St. Renan stood in the shadow of a dense trellice
in the garden, watching the moment when that love-beacon should
expire. The clock of St. Germain l'Auxerre struck twelve, and at the
instant all was darkness. Another minute and the lofty wall was
scaled, and Melanie was in the arms of Raoul.

It was a strange, grim, gloomy gothic chamber, full of strange niches
and recesses of old stone-work. The walls were hung with gilded
tapestries of Spanish leather, but were interrupted in many places by
the antique stone groinings of alcoves and cup-boards, one of which,
close beside the mantlepiece, was closed by a curiously carved door of
heavy oak-work, itself sunk above a foot within the embrasure of the
wall.

Lighted as it was only by the flickering of the wood-fire on the
hearth, for the thickness of the walls, and the damp of the old
vaulted room rendered a fire acceptable even at midsummer, that
antique chamber appeared doubly grim and ghostly; but little cared the
young lovers for its dismal seeming; and if they noticed it at all, it
was but to jest at the contrast of its appearance with the happy hours
which they passed within it.

Happy, indeed, they were--almost too happy--though as pure and
guiltless as if they had been hours spent within a nunnery o