“And your reason, Denise?”

“I said I would give you an answer, I did not undertake to give reasons.”

“Certainly. May I plead, however, that perhaps, remembering the past, what you and I have been to each other since childhood, I have some right to ask?”

She placed her fan on the shelf of the chimney with sharp decision. The firelight flashed in her grey eyes. “I refuse,” she said, very distinctly, “to marry a man who does not love me.”

“Then you do not believe my words?” he questioned quickly.

“You are a noble, André,” she answered; “the courtesy of a noble and a gentleman requires that when he demands a woman’s hand in marriage he should profess to love her. For the honour you have done me I thank you, but a woman finds the proof not in words but in deeds. You are a brave soldier, but you do not love me. That is enough.”

“No, it is not enough for me,” he answered.

“Very well.” She took a step forward. “I had no desire to discuss things not fit for a girl to speak of to a man who has done her the honour to ask her hand in marriage, and I would have spared both myself and you unnecessary pain. Plainly then and briefly, when I take a husband I do not choose to share what he professes is his love with any other woman. That is my reason and my answer in one.”

A flush darkened his sallow cheek. “It is not true,” he protested passionately, “it is not true.”“You would deny it?” she cried, passion too leaping into her voice. “Is that letter to the Comtesse des Forges, one of my friends--my friends, _mon Dieu!_--yours, or is it not?” She handed it to him with hot scorn.

“It was written twelve months ago,” he said, somewhat lamely.

“And the duel which it caused is twelve months ago, too, I suppose? The right arm of her husband the Comte des Forges is healed, but the wound--my God! the wound in his heart and mine, that you can never heal. And she is not alone. Does not Paris ring with the gallantries of the Vicomte de Nérac? For aught I know there may be a dozen husbands in England who have lost their sword arm because André de Nérac professed to love their wives.” She checked herself and was calm again. “I thank you for the honour you have done me, but--” she offered him the stateliest, coldest curtsey, “Vicomte, I am your servant.”

She would have escaped by the door behind her, 

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