this unfortunate, she had stepped out on to the balcony where already
an idle group had formed. Inexpressible had been her shock upon
seeing him that lay below, his white face upturned to the heavens,
his eyes closed.

"Is he dead?" she asked, when presently she had overcome her feelings.

"Not yet Mademoiselle," answered the graceful Chevalier de Jacquelin,
toying with his solitaire. "Your father is bringing him to life that
he may send him back to death."

And then she heard her father's voice behind her. The Marquis had
stepped out on to the balcony to ascertain whether La Boulaye had
yet regained consciousness.

"He seems to be even now recovering," said someone.

"Ah, you are there, Suzanne," cried Bellecour. "You see your friend
the secretary there. He has chosen to present himself in a new role
to-day. From being my servant, it seems that he would constitute
himself my murderer."

However unfilial it might be, she could not stifle a certain sympathy
for this young man. She imagined that his rebellion, whatever shape
it had assumed, had been provoked by that weal upon his face; and it
seemed to her then that he had been less than a man had he not
attempted to exact some reparation for the hurt the whip had
inflicted at once upon his body and his soul.

"But what is it that he has done, Monsieur?" she asked, seeking more