business and will not return until to-morrow."

Could Clovis really have been base enough to confide such a mission as this to the governess, running off meanwhile himself like a coward? Was he bent on withering every leaf of her true love that still struggled for existence? She could scarce believe it even now.

"Madame had better listen and be calm," suggested Aglaé. "It is always better to be calm."

"Wherever they may go, my place is with my husband and my children," the marquise replied with dignity.

"Cannot madame perceive a troublesome nuance, which, in another place, might make her position uncomfortable?"

"Enough of this impertinence," returned the other, sternly. "You forget that you are my servant, to be dismissed at pleasure. Speak plainly and briefly, or I will have you ejected by the valets."

"Impertinent, am I?" cried mademoiselle, losing her temper. "Since you wish it, I will speak plainly. Here, within these gaunt grey walls, what passes within concerns nobody without; but if we should have to fly--which may or may not prove expedient--we shall be dwelling in a public place, where others will criticise our acts. It will be said that the Marquise de Gange is a mean-spirited creature to eat her bread on sufferance at the table of a man who hates her, and of his mistress who treats her with contumely. That is what will be said of the pretty, empty-headed doll who was too stupid to hold her place as the reigning belle of Paris. They will also say that she is bad, as well as mean, to have abandoned her own offspring to the mistress to mould according to her fancy. Madame will probably now perceive that her presence with us anywhere except in the privacy of Lorge, will be an abiding source of scandal."

His mistress! The brazen wretch!--confessed--nay, gloried--in her shame; and the unhappy wife had striven so hard to believe that there was nothing but camaraderie between them.

"You wicked, wicked woman!" Gabrielle gasped, choking. "I have never wittingly done you aught but kindness. You are a fiend."

"A fiend!" echoed Aglaé, amused, stretching herself luxuriously with loose limbs as the tigress does, while she proceeded.

"Every female envelope contains an angel and a devil combating; which gains the mastery depends upon the men, who, I regret to say, are usually guided by 

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