r of applause.

* * * * *

After the curtain had fallen, and while the folk were yet streaming out,
Jacques summoned Raoul to Mademoiselle's room. She met him with her
hands outstretched.

"Chevalier, you played beautifully," she said; "and I have never danced
better. You inspired me; you are my good angel. Come to me to-morrow and
take me to mass."

Is she acting still? he thought. He was not sure, but it was admirably
done. He felt her hands on his and he could only bow obedience and
escape as speedily as possible.

Before he went to bed he took a candle and placed it so that he might
see himself in the mirror. He gazed long and steadily as at a picture of
a stranger. He saw a man with black hair, with a pale, earnest face,
clean shaven, and with shoulders bent. In the darkness, afterwards, when
he remembered the face of Mademoiselle, as she came to him with her arms
outstretched, he remembered also what the mirror had shown him.

* * * * *

Mademoiselle, in her room at the Hotel St. Amand, wrote to Paris:

"He is a hunchback and I have appointed him chevalier. Do not laugh, my
dear Helene; you would not, if you could but see him. His sad eyes would
command your pity. His face is pale and stern, but handsome, and he is
kind and gentle. They say that he dislikes women; from what I have seen
of the women here I do not think he is altogether to blame. He is to
escort me to mass to-morrow. The good people will think that I am mad.
So much the better."

* * * * *

She laid her pen down and leaned back with her hands clasped behind her
head.

Suddenly the half smile faded from her lips, and a pained expression
flashed across her face. She sat up and finished the letter quietly. As
she rose to seal it she said to herself: "No; he is too good. A grande
passion would kill him."

For a week she gave herself up to Raoul's guidance. At the end of that
time she knew Rocheville almost as if she had lived her life there.

V.

A month passed. Mademoiselle Elise still retained her guide. Every
afternoon they wandered together somewhere or other; either through the
town, or by the sea, or in the woods. At a loss for any logical
explanation of the strange friendship, people assumed that the two were
old acquaintances. Mademoiselle never contradicted this assumption.

"He is my chevalier," she explained.

During the first f