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“Mademoiselle, pardon me that I am a foolish baron, and dare to offer you the title that you hate. I have served you faithfully for a month, and, presumptuous as it is, I ask to be allowed to serve you all my life. Helen, say you forgive the deceit for love’s sake.”

“No; you are false and forsworn. How can I believe that anything is true?”

And Helen drew away the hand of which he had taken possession.

“Heart’s dearest, you trusted me in spite of my disguise; trust me still, and I will prove that I am neither false nor forsworn. Catechise me, and see if I was not true in spite of all my seeming deception.”

“You said your name was Karl Hoffman,” began Helen, glad to gain a little time to calm herself before the momentous question came.

“It is; I have many, and my family choose to call me Sigismund,” was the laughing answer.

“I’ll never call you so; you shall be Karl, the courier, all your life to me,” cried Helen, still unable to meet the ardent eyes before her.

“Good; I like that well; for it assures me that all my life I shall be something to you, my heart. What next?”

“When I asked if you were the baron, you denied it.”

“Pardon! I simply said my name was Hoffman. You did not ask me point blank if I was the baron; had you done so, I think I should have confessed all, for it was very hard to restrain myself this morning.”

“No, not yet; I have more questions;” and Helen warned him away, as it became evident that he no longer considered restraint necessary.

“Who is Ludmilla?” she said, sharply.

“My faith, that is superb!” exclaimed the baron, with a triumphant smile at her betrayal of jealousy. “How if she is a former love?” he asked, with a sly look at her changing face.

“It would cause me no surprise; I am prepared for anything.”

“How if she is my dearest sister, for whom I sent, that she might welcome you and bring the greetings of my parents to their new daughter?”

“Is it, indeed, so?”

And Helen’s eyes dimmed as the thought of parents, home and love filled her heart with tenderest gratitude, for she had long been an orphan.

“Leibchen, it is true; to-morrow you shall see how dear you already are to them, for I write often and they wait eagerly to receive you.”

Helen felt herself going very fast, and made an effort to harden her heart, lest too easy victory should reward this audacious lover.

“I may not go; I also have friends, and in England we are not won in this wild way. I will yet prove you false; it will console me for being so duped if I can call you traitor. You said Casimer had fought in Poland.”

“Crudest of women, he did, but under his own name, Sidney Power.”

“Then, he was not the brave Stanislas?–and there is no charming Casimer?”

“Yes, there are both,–his and my friends, in Paris; true Poles, and when we go there you shall see them.”

“But his illness was a ruse?”

“No; he was wounded in the war and has been ill since. Not of a fatal malady, I own; his cough misled you, and he has no scruples in fabling to any extent. I am not to bear the burden of his sins.”

“Then, the romances he told us about your charity, your virtues, and–your love of liberty were false?” said Helen, with a keen glance, for these tales had done much to interest her in the unknown baron.

Sudden color rose to his forehead, and for the first time his eyes fell before hers,–not in shame, but with a modest man’s annoyance at hearing himself praised.

“Sidney is enthusiastic in his friendship, and speaks too well for me. The facts are true, but he doubtless glorified the simplest by his way of telling it. Will you forgive my follies, and believe me when I promise to play and duel no more?”