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Dieu! It was like a thrust in the high lines, and its hurtful violence staggered me I was finished, it seemed The victory was hers, and she but a child with no practice of Cupid's art of fence!

"Now, monsieur," she added, "now that you are satisfied that you did wrong to say I loved you, now that we have disposed of that question--adieu!"

"A moment yet!" I cried "We have disposed of that, but there was another point, an earlier one, which for the arded We have--you have disproved the love I was so presumptuous as to believe you fostered for me We have yet to reckon with the love I bear you, mademoiselle, and of that we shall not be able to dispose so readily"

With a gesture of weariness or of impatience, she turned aside "What is it you want? What do you seek to gain by thus provoking er?" Her voice was cold Who to have looked upon that childlike face, upon thoseeyes, could have believed her capable of so er; I have lost and paid it," said I

She looked up suddenly Her brows met in a frown of bewilderain was she drawn

"How?" she asked "You have lost and paid it?"

"Even so That odious, cursed, infa which I hinted at so often as standing between you and --that so often you urged er Would to God, Roxalanne, that I had told you!" I cried, and it see in my voice drove some of the harshness frolance

"Unfortunately," I pursued, "it always seemed to me either not yet tiained er existed I ht not ask you to becoinal intention which eht uedoc And so my first step was to seek out Chatellerault and deliver him my note of hand for reater bulk--of all my fortune My second step was to repair to you at the Hotel de l'Epee

"At last I could approach you with clean hands; I could confess what I had done; and since it seemed to me that I had made the utmost atonement, I was confident of success Alas! I cae I met you as you came forth From my talkative intendant you had learnt already the story of that bargain into which Bardelys had entered You had learnt who I was, and you thought that you had learnt why I wooed you Accordingly you could but despise me"