"Ah, monsieur, do you ask?--can you pretend to be ignorant? Have you not
sent me a message, a cruel, cruel message?"

She spoke so low and gently, that a person at the other end of the room
could hardly have heard her words.

"Yes, Mademoiselle de Barras, I did send you a message," he replied,
doggedly. "A cruel one you will scarcely presume to call it, when you
reflect upon your own conduct, and the circumstances which have provoked
the measures I have taken."

"What have I done, Monsieur?--what circumstances do you mean?" asked she,
plaintively.

"What have you done! A pretty question, truly. Ha, ha!" he repeated,
bitterly, and then added, with suppressed vehemence, "ask your own heart,
mademoiselle."

"I have asked, I do ask, and my heart answers--nothing," she replied,
raising her fine melancholy eyes for a moment to his face.

"It lies, then," he retorted, with a fierce scoff.

"Monsieur, before heaven I swear, you wrong me foully," she said,
earnestly, clasping her hands together.

"Did ever woman say she was accused rightly, mademoiselle?" retorted
Marston, with a sneer.

"I don't know--I don't care. I only know that I am innocent," continued