since I have been in their house. For the last year especially I
have been treated on equal terms as one of the family. Among the
habitual visitors at the house is a gentleman of noble birth, but
not of rank too high, nor of fortune too great, to make a marriage
with the French widowed governess a misalliance. I am sure that he
loves me sincerely; and he is the only man I ever met whose love I
have cared to win. We are to be married in the course of the year.
Of course he is ignorant of my painful history, and will never learn
it. And after all, Louise D---- is dead. In the home to which I am
about to remove, there is no probability that the wretched
Englishman can ever cross my path. My secret is as safe with you as
in the grave that holds her whom in the name of Louise D---- you
once loved. Henceforth I shall trouble you no more with my letters;
but if you hear anything decisively authentic of my uncle's fate,
write me a line at any time, directed as before to Madame ----,
enclosed to the Countess von Rudesheim.

"And accept, for all the kindness you have ever shown me, as to one
whom you did not disdain to call a kinswoman, the assurance of my
undying gratitude. In the alliance she now makes, your kinswoman
does not discredit the name through which she is connected with the
yet loftier line of Rochebriant."


To this letter the late Marquis had appended in pencil. "Of course
Rochebriant never denies the claim of a kinswoman, even though a drawing-
master's daughter. Beautiful creature, Louise, but a termagant. I could
not love Venus if she were a termagant. L.'s head turned by the unlucky
discovery that her mother was noble. In one form or other, every woman
has the same disease--vanity. Name of her intended not mentioned--easily