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Up to this the lady had played a waiting game, but now she grew quite confused, trying to discover the thread of the treasurer’s thoughts. To whom did he refer? The Duc de Vitry? That had been her first impression. But the duke had only been acquainted with her for a few months–since she had–left Court. He could not therefore have excited the jealousy of her whilom lover; and if it were not he, to whom did the words about rejecting “perfidious friendship,” and “returned to town,” and so on, apply? Jeannin divined her embarrassment, and was not a little proud of the tactics which would, he was almost sure; force her to expose herself. For there are certain women who can be thrown into cruel perplexity by speaking to them of their love-passages without affixing a proper name label to each. They are placed as it were on the edge of an abyss, and forced to feel their way in darkness. To say “You have loved” almost obliges them to ask, “Whom?”

Nevertheless, this was not the word uttered by Mademoiselle de Guerchi while she ran through in her head a list of possibilities. Her answer was–

“Your language astonishes me; I don’t understand what you mean.”

The ice was broken, and the treasurer made a plunge. Seizing one of Angelique’s hands, he asked–

“Have you never seen Commander de Jars since then?”

“Commander de Jars!” exclaimed Angelique.

“Can you swear to me, Angelique, that you love him not?”

“Mon Dieu! What put it into your head that I ever cared for him? It’s over four months since I saw him last, and I hadn’t an idea whether he was alive or dead. So he has been out of town? That’s the first I heard of it.”

“My fortune is yours, Angelique! Oh! assure me once again that you do not love him–that you never loved him!” he pleaded in a faltering voice, fixing a look of painful anxiety upon her.

He had no intention of putting her out of countenance by the course he took; he knew quite well that a woman like Angelique is never more at her ease than when she has a chance of telling an untruth of this nature. Besides, he had prefaced this appeal by the magic words, “My fortune’ is yours!” and the hope thus aroused was well worth a perjury. So she answered boldly and in a steady voice, while she looked straight into his eyes–

“Never!”

“I believe you!” exclaimed Jeannin, going down on his knees and covering with his kisses the hand he still held. “I can taste happiness again. Listen, Angelique. I am leaving Paris; my mother is dead, and I am going back to Spain. Will you follow me thither?”

“I—follow you?”

“I hesitated long before finding you out, so much did I fear a repulse. I set out to-morrow. Quit Paris, leave the world which has slandered you, and come with me. In a fortnight we shall be man and wife.”

“You are not in earnest!”

“May I expire at your feet if I am not! Do you want me to sign the oath with my blood?”

“Rise,” she said in a broken voice. “Have I at last found a man to love me and compensate me for all the abuse that has been showered on my head? A thousand times I thank you, not for what you are doing for me, but for the balm you pour on my wounded spirit. Even if you were to say to me now, ‘After all, I am obliged to give you up’ the pleasure of knowing you esteem me would make up for all the rest. It would be another happy memory to treasure along with my memory of our love, which was ineffaceable, although you so ungratefully suspected me of having deceived you.”

The treasurer appeared fairly intoxicated with joy. He indulged in a thousand ridiculous extravagances and exaggerations, and declared himself the happiest of men. Mademoiselle de Guerchi, who was desirous of being prepared for every peril, asked him in a coaxing tone–