but André intercepted her. “No,” he said, “you do not leave me yet. I, too, have something to say and you, Marquise, will be pleased to hear it.”

Their eyes met and then Denise walked back to her place by the fireplace. She was trembling now, and she no longer looked him in the face.

“As to the past,” he said in a low voice, “I say nothing, for I deserve your reproaches. I have been foolish, wicked, unworthy of you. But there is no noble today at Versailles of whom the same could not be said. Men are men, and I have never concealed from you what I have been. But such things do not destroy love. They cannot and they never will, and every woman knows it. My past, I assert, is not your reason.”

“What then is?” she asked proudly.

“I am poor, you are rich, but that is not the reason, either. Do not think I would dishonour you by supposing that I believed that, though some whom you call your friends say it is. No, the reason is that while I have been away, a prisoner, defenceless, silent, someone--” he paused, “someone has been poisoning your mind, someone who hopes to take the place----”

“Take care----” she interrupted.

“You speak of the gossip of Paris. I will not tell you what the gossip of Paris and Versailles says, for you will hear it and more fitly from other lips than mine. But I say, that poisoner will answer to me.”

She was about to speak, but checked herself.

“And I will tell you why. First because I love you and I love no one else. You do not believe it. You ask for deeds, not words. In the future you shall have them. And second, because you, Denise, love me, yes, love me.”

“Have done, have done with this mockery!” she cried.

“Tell me,” was his answer, “on your word of honour, that it is not so, tell me that you do not love me and never will, tell me that you love another and on my word as a gentleman I will never speak of love to you again.”

Dead silence. André waited quietly.

“I refuse,” she said, slowly, picking the words, “to be questioned in this manner. But as you insist, I repeat--I do not love you.”

André bowed. “One word more, Denise, if you please,” he said, “one word and I leave your presence forever.”

She drew 

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