"Dearest brother!" said she, "are you sure Angelique returns, or is capable of returning, love like yours? She is like the rest of us, weak and fickle, merely human, and not at all the divinity a man in his fancy worships when in love with a woman." It was in vain, however, for Amelie to try to persuade her brother of that.

"What care I, Amelie, so long as Angelique is not weak and fickle to me?" answered he; "but she will think her tardy lover is both weak and fickle unless I put in a speedy appearance at the Maison des Meloises!"

He rose up as if to depart, still holding his sister by the hand.

Amelie's tears flowed silently in the darkness. She was not willing to plant a seed of distrust in the bosom of her brother, yet she remembered bitterly and indignantly what Angelique had said of her intentions towards the Intendant. Was she using Le Gardeur as a foil to set off her attractions in the eyes of Bigot?

"Brother!" said Amelie, "I am a woman, and comprehend my sex better than you. I know Angelique's far-reaching ambition and crafty ways. Are you sure, not in outward persuasion but in inward conviction, that she loves you as a woman should love the man she means to marry?"

Le Gardeur felt her words like a silver probe that searched his heart.

With all his unbounded devotion, he knew Angelique too well not to feel a pang of distrust sometimes, as she showered her coquetries upon every side of her. It was the overabundance of her love, he said, but he thought it often fell like the dew round Gideon's fleece, refreshing all the earth about it, but leaving the fleece dry. "Amelie!" said he, "you try me hard, and tempt me too, my sister, but it is useless. Angelique may be false as Cressida to other men, she will not be false to me! She has sworn it, with her hand in mine, before the altar of Notre Dame. I would go down to perdition with her in my arms rather than be a crowned king with all the world of women to choose from and not get her."

Amelie shuddered at his vehemence, but she knew how useless was expostulation. She wisely refrained, deeming it her duty, like a good sister, to make the best of what she could not hinder. Some jasmines overhung the seat; she plucked a handful, and gave them to him as they rose to return to the house.

"Take them with you, Le Gardeur," said she, giving him the flowers, which she tied into a wreath; "they will remind Angelique that she has a powerful rival in your sister's love."

He took them as they walked slowly back. "Would she were like you, Amelie, in all things!" said he. "I will put some of your flowers in her hair to-night for your sake, sister."

"And for her own! May they be for you both an augury of good! Mind and return home, Le Gardeur, after your visit. I shall sit up to await your arrival, to congratulate you;" and, after a pause, she added, "or to console you, brother!"

"Oh, no fear, sister!" replied he, cheeringly. "Angelique is true as steel to me. You shall call her my betrothed tomorrow! Good-by! And now go dance with all delight till morning." He kissed her and departed for the city, leaving her in the ball-room by the side of the Lady de Tilly.

Amelie related to her aunt the result of her conversation with Le Gardeur, and the cause of his leaving the fete so abruptly. The Lady de Tilly listened with surprise and distress. "To think," said she, "of Le Gardeur asking that terrible girl to marry him! My only hope is, she will refuse him. And if it be as I hear, I think she will!"

"It would be the ruin of Le Gardeur if she did, aunt! You cannot think how determined he is on this marriage."

"It would be his ruin if she accepted him!" replied the Lady de Tilly.

"With any other woman Le Gardeur might have a fair chance of happiness; but none with her! More than one of her lovers lies in a bloody grave by reason of her coquetries. She has ruined every man whom she has flattered into loving her. She is without affection. Her thoughts are covered with a veil of deceit impenetrable. She would sacrifice the whole world to her vanity. I fear, Amelie, she will sacrifice Le Gardeur as ruthlessly as the most worthless of her admirers."

"We can only hope for the best, aunt; and I do think Angelique loves Le Gardeur as she never loved any other."

They were presently rejoined by Pierre Philibert. The Lady de Tilly and Amelie apologized for Le Gardeur's departure,--he had been compelled to go to the city on an affair of urgency, and had left them to make his excuses. Pierre Philibert was not without a shrewd perception of the state of affairs. He pitied Le Gardeur, and excused him, speaking most kindly of him in a way that touched the heart of Amelie. The ball went on with unflagging spirit and enjoyment. The old walls fairly vibrated with the music and dancing of the gay company.

The music, like the tide in the great river that night, reached its flood only after the small hours had set in. Amelie had given her hand to Pierre for one or two dances, and many a friendly, many a half envious guess was made as to the probable Chatelaine of Belmont.

CHAPTER XXII. SO GLOZED THE TEMPTER.

The lamps burned brightly in the boudoir of Angelique des Meloises on the night of the fete of Pierre Philibert. Masses of fresh flowers filled the antique Sevres vases, sending delicious odors through the apartment, which was furnished in a style of almost royal splendor. Upon the white hearth a few billets of wood blazed cheerfully, for, after a hot day, as was not uncommon in New France, a cool salt-water breeze came up the great river, bringing reminders of cold sea-washed rocks and snowy crevices still lingering upon the mountainous shores of the St.

Lawrence.

Angelique sat idly watching the wreaths of smoke as they rose in shapes fantastic as her own thoughts.

By that subtle instinct which is a sixth sense in woman, she knew that Le Gardeur de Repentigny would visit her to-night and renew his offer of marriage. She meant to retain his love and evade his proposals, and she never for a moment doubted her ability to accomplish her ends. Men's hearts had hitherto been but potter's clay in her hands, and she had no misgivings now; but she felt that the love of Le Gardeur was a thing she could not tread on without a shock to herself like the counter-stroke of a torpedo to the naked foot of an Indian who rashly steps upon it as it basks in a sunny pool.

She was agitated beyond her wont, for she loved Le Gardeur with a strange, selfish passion, for her own sake, not for his,--a sort of love not uncommon with either sex. She had the frankness to be half ashamed of it, for she knew the wrong she was doing to one of the most noble and faithful hearts in the world. But the arrival of the Intendant had unsettled every good resolution she had once made to marry Le Gardeur de Repentigny and become a reputable matron in society. Her ambitious fantasies dimmed every perception of duty to her own heart as well as his; and she had worked herself into that unenviable frame of mind which possesses a woman who cannot resolve either to consent or deny, to accept her lover or to let him go.

The solitude of her apartment became insupportable to her. She sprang up, opened the window, and sat down in the balcony outside, trying to find composure by looking down into the dark, still street. The voices of two men engaged in eager conversation reached her ear. They sat upon the broad steps of the house, so that every word they spoke reached her ear, although she could scarcely distinguish them in the darkness. These were no other than Max Grimeau and Blind Bartemy, the brace of beggars whose post was at the gate of the Basse Ville. They seemed to be comparing the amount of alms each had received during the day, and were arranging for a supper at some obscure haunt they frequented in the purlieus of the lower town, when another figure came up, short, dapper, and carrying a knapsack, as Angelique could detect by the glimmer of a lantern that hung on a rope stretched across the street. He was greeted warmly by the old mendicants.

"Sure as my old musket it is Master Pothier, and nobody else!" exclaimed Max Grimeau rising, and giving the newcomer a hearty embrace. "Don't you see, Bartemy? He has been foraging among the fat wives of the south shore. What a cheek he blows--red as a peony, and fat as a Dutch Burgomaster!" Max had seen plenty of the world when he marched under Marshal de Belleisle, so he was at no loss for apt comparisons.

"Yes!" replied Blind Bartemy, holding out his hand to be shaken. "I see by your voice, Master Pothier, that you have not said grace over bare bones during your absence. But where have you been this long time?"

"Oh, fleecing the King's subjects to the best of my poor ability in the law! and without half the success of you and Max here, who toll the gate of the Basse Ville more easily than the Intendant gets in the King's taxes!"

"Why not?" replied Bartemy, with a pious twist of his neck, and an upward cast of his blank orbs. "It is pour l'amour de Dieu! We beggars save more souls than the Cure; for we are always exhorting men to charity. I think we ought to be part of Holy Church as well as the Gray Friars."

"And so we are part of Holy Church, Bartemy!" interrupted Max Grimeau.

"When the good Bishop washed twelve pair of our dirty feet on Maunday Thursday in the Cathedral, I felt like an Apostle--I did! My feet were just ready for benediction; for see! they had never been washed, that I remember of, since I marched to the relief of Prague! But you should have been out to Belmont to-day, Master Pothier! There was the grandest Easter pie ever made in New France! You might have carried on a lawsuit inside of it, and lived off the estate for a year--I ate a bushel of it.

I did!"

"Oh, the cursed luck is every day mine!" replied Master Pothier, clapping his hands upon his stomach. "I would not have missed that Easter pie--no, not to draw the Pope's will! But, as it is laid down in the Coutume d' Orleans (Tit. 17), the absent lose the usufruct of their rights; vide, also, Pothier des Successions--I lost my share of the pie of Belmont!"

"Well, never mind, Master Pothier," replied Max. "Don't grieve; you shall go with us to-night to the Fleur-de-Lis in the Sault au Matelot.

Bartemy and I have bespoken an eel pie and a gallon of humming cider of Normandy. We shall all be jolly as the marguilliers of Ste. Roche, after tithing the parish!"

"Have with you, then! I am free now: I have just delivered a letter to the Intendant from a lady at Beaumanoir, and got a crown for it. I will lay it on top of your eel pie, Max!"

Angelique, from being simply amused at the conversation of the old beggars, became in an instant all eyes and ears at the words of Master Pothier.

"Had you ever the fortune to see that lady at Beaumanoir?" asked Max, with more curiosity than was to be expected of one in his position.

"No; the letter was handed me by Dame Tremblay, with a cup of wine. But the Intendant gave me a crown when he read it. I never saw the Chevalier Bigot in better humor! That letter touched both his purse and his feelings. But how did you ever come to hear of the Lady of Beaumanoir?"

"Oh, Bartemy and I hear everything at the gate of the Basse Ville! My Lord Bishop and Father Glapion of the Jesuits met in the gate one day and spoke of her, each asking the other if he knew who she was--when up rode the Intendant; and the Bishop made free, as Bishops will, you know, to question him whether he kept a lady at the Chateau.

"'A round dozen of them, my Lord Bishop!' replied Bigot, laughing. La!

It takes the Intendant to talk down a Bishop! He bade my Lord not to trouble himself, the lady was under his tutelle! which I comprehended as little, as little--"

"As you do your Nominy Dominy!" replied Pothier. "Don't be angry, Max, if I infer that the Intendant quoted Pigean (Tit. 2, 27): 'Le Tuteur est comptable de sa gestion.'"

"I don't care what the pigeons have to say to it--that is what the Intendant said!" replied Max, hotly, "and THAT, for your law grimoire, Master Pothier!" Max snapped his fingers like the lock of his musket at Prague, to indicate what he meant by THAT!

"Oh, inepte loquens! you don't understand either law or Latin, Max!"

exclaimed Pothier, shaking his ragged wig with an air of pity.

"I understand begging; and that is getting without cheating, and much more to the purpose," replied Max, hotly. "Look you, Master Pothier! you are learned as three curates; but I can get more money in the gate of the Basse Ville by simply standing still and crying out Pour l'amour de Dieu! than you with your budget of law lingo-jingo, running up and down the country until the dogs eat off the calves of your legs, as they say in the Nivernois."

"Well, never mind what they say in the Nivernois about the calves of my legs! Bon coq ne fut jamais gras!--a game-cock is never fat--and that is Master Pothier dit Robin. Lean as are my calves, they will carry away as much of your eel pie to-night as those of the stoutest carter in Quebec!"

"And the pie is baked by this time; so let us be jogging!" interrupted Bartemy, rising. "Now give me your arm, Max! and with Master Pothier's on the other side, I shall walk to the Fleur-de-Lis straight as a steeple."

The glorious prospect of supper made all three merry as crickets on a warm hearth, as they jogged over the pavement in their clouted shoes, little suspecting they had left a flame of anger in the breast of Angelique des Meloises, kindled by the few words of Pothier respecting the lady of Beaumanoir.

Angelique recalled with bitterness that the rude bearer of the note had observed something that had touched the heart and opened the purse of the Intendant. What was it? Was Bigot playing a game with Angelique des Meloises? Woe to him and the lady of Beaumanoir if he was! As she sat musing over it a knock was heard on the door of her boudoir. She left the balcony and reentered her room, where a neat, comely girl in a servant's dress was waiting to speak to her.

The girl was not known to Angelique. But courtesying very low, she informed her that she was Fanchon Dodier, a cousin of Lizette's. She had been in service at the Chateau of Beaumanoir, but had just left it.