have--been told is true: you have given your love to him."

She could not check a startled movement.

"You see it is only when I speak of him that I can overcome in you the
insensibility which is killing me. My suspicions were true after all:
you deceived me for his sake. Oh! the instinctive feeling of jealousy
was right which forced me to quarrel with that man, to reject the
perfidious friendship which he tried to force upon me. He has returned
to town, and we shall meet! But why do I say 'returned'? Perhaps he
only pretended to go away, and safe in this retreat has flouted with
impunity, my despair and braved my vengeance!"

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