honoured by some notes from the Duchesse in which this sort of romance
was owned. I had not replied to them encouragingly. In truth, my heart
was then devoted to another,--the English girl whom I had wooed as my
wife; who, despite her parents' retraction of their consent to our union
when they learned how dilapidated were my fortunes, pledged herself to
remain faithful to me, and wait for better days." Again De Mauleon
paused in suppressed emotion, and then went on hurriedly: "No, the
Duchesse did not inspire me with guilty passion, but she did inspire me
with an affectionate respect. I felt that she was by nature meant to be
a great and noble creature, and was, nevertheless, at that moment wholly
misled from her right place amongst women by an illusion of mere
imagination about a man who happened then to be very much talked about,
and perhaps resembled some Lothario in the novels which she was always
reading. We lodged, as you may remember, in the same house."

"Yes, I remember. I remember how you once took me to a great ball given
by the Duchesse; how handsome I thought her, though no longer young; and
you say right--how I did envy you, that night!"

"From that night, however, the Duc, not unnaturally, became jealous. He
reproved the Duchesse for her too amiable manner towards a _mauvais
sujet_ like myself, and forbade her in future to receive my visits. It
was then that these notes became frequent and clandestine, brought to me
by her maid, who took back my somewhat chilling replies.

"But to proceed. In the flush of my high spirits, and in the insolence
of magnificent ease with which I paid De N------ the trifle I owed him,
something he said made my heart stand still."

"I told him that the money received had come from Jacques de Mauleon, and