The garden walks were not deserted: their beauty drew out many a couple who sauntered merrily, or lovingly, down the pleached avenues, which looked like the corridors of a gorgeously-decorated palace.

Bigot and Angelique moved among the guests, receiving, as they passed, obsequious salutations, which to Angelique seemed a foretaste of royalty. She had seen the gardens of the palace many times before, but never illuminated as now. The sight of them so grandly decorated filled her with admiration of their owner, and she resolved that, cost what it would, the homage paid to her to-night, as the partner of the Intendant, should become hers by right on his hearthstone as the first lady in New France.

Angelique threw back her veil that all might see her, that the women might envy and the men admire her, as she leaned confidingly on the arm of Bigot, looking up in his face with that wonderful smile of hers which had brought so many men to ruin at her feet, and talking with such enchantment as no woman could talk but Angelique des Meloises.

Well understanding that her only road to success was to completely fascinate the Intendant, she bent herself to the task with such power of witchery and such simulation of real passion, that Bigot, wary and experienced gladiator as he was in the arena of love, was more than once brought to the brink of a proposal for her hand.

She watched every movement of his features, at these critical moments when he seemed just falling into the snares so artfully set for him.

When she caught his eyes glowing with passionate admiration, she shyly affected to withdraw hers from his gaze, turning on him at times flashes of her dark eyes which electrified every nerve of his sensuous nature.

She felt the pressure of his hand, the changed and softened inflections of his voice, she knew the words of her fate were trembling on his lips, and yet they did not come! The shadow of that pale hand at Beaumanoir, weak and delicate as it was, seemed to lay itself upon his lips when about to speak to her, and snatch away the words which Angelique, trembling with anticipation, was ready to barter away body and soul to hear spoken.

In a shady passage through a thick greenery where the lights were dimmer and no one was near, she allowed his arm for a moment to encircle her yielding form, and she knew by his quick breath that the words were moulded in his thoughts, and were on the point to rush forth in a torrent of speech. Still they came not, and Bigot again, to her unutterable disgust, shied off like a full-blooded horse which starts suddenly away from some object by the wayside and throws his rider headlong on the ground. So again were dashed the ardent expectations of Angelique.

She listened to the gallant and gay speeches of Bigot, which seemed to flutter like birds round her, but never lit on the ground where she had spread her net like a crafty fowler as she was, until she went almost mad with suppressed anger and passionate excitement. But she kept on replying with badinage light as his own, and with laughter so soft and silvery that it seemed a gentle dew from Heaven, instead of the drift and flying foam of the storm that was raging in her bosom.

She read and re-read glimpses of his hidden thoughts that went and came like faces in a dream, and she saw in her imagination the dark, pleading eyes and pale face of the lady of Beaumanoir. It came now like a revelation, confirming a thousand suspicions that Bigot loved that pale, sad face too well ever to marry Angelique des Meloises while its possessor lived at Beaumanoir,--or while she lived at all!

And it came to that! In this walk with Bigot round the glorious garden, with God's flowers shedding fragrance around them; with God's stars shining overhead above all the glitter and illusion of the thousand lamps, Angelique repeated to herself the terrific words, "Bigot loves that pale, sad face too well ever to marry me while its possessor lives at Beaumanoir--or while she lives at all!"

The thought haunted her! It would not leave her! She leaned heavily upon his arm as she swept like a queen of Cyprus through the flower-bordered walks, brushing the roses and lilies with her proud train, and treading, with as dainty a foot as ever bewitched human eye, the white paths that led back to the grand terrace of the Palace.

Her fevered imagination played tricks in keeping with her fear: more than once she fancied she saw the shadowy form of a beautiful woman walking on the other side of Bigot next his heart! It was the form of Caroline bearing a child in one arm, and claiming, by that supreme appeal to a man's heart, the first place in his affections.

The figure sometimes vanished, sometimes reappeared in the same place, and once and the last time assumed the figure and look of Our Lady of St. Foye, triumphant after a thousand sufferings, and still ever bearing the face and look of the lady of Beaumanoir.

Emerging at last from the dim avenue into the full light, where a fountain sent up showers of sparkling crystals, the figure vanished, and Angelique sat down on a quaintly-carved seat under a mountain-ash, very tired, and profoundly vexed at all things and with everybody.

A servant in gorgeous livery brought a message from the ballroom to the Intendant.

He was summoned for a dance, but he would not leave Angelique, he said.

But Angelique begged for a short rest: it was so pleasant in the garden.

She would remain by the fountain. She liked its sparkling and splashing, it refreshed her; the Intendant could come for her in half an hour; she wanted to be alone; she felt in a hard, unamiable mood, she said, and he only made her worse by stopping with her when others wanted him, and he wanted others!

The Intendant protested, in terms of the warmest gallantry, that he would not leave her; but seeing Angelique really desired at the present moment to be alone, and reflecting that he was himself sacrificing too much for the sake of one goddess, while a hundred others were adorned and waiting for his offerings, he promised in half an hour to return for her to this spot by the fountain, and proceeded towards the Palace.

Angelique sat watching the play and sparkle of the fountain, which she compared to her own vain exertions to fascinate the Intendant, and thought that her efforts had been just as brilliant, and just as futile!

She was sadly perplexed. There was a depth in Bigot's character which she could not fathom, a bottomless abyss into which she was falling and could not save herself. Whichever way she turned the eidolon of Caroline met her as a bar to all further progress in her design upon the Intendant.

The dim half-vision of Caroline which she had seen in the pleached walk, she knew was only the shadow and projection of her own thoughts, a brooding fancy which she had unconsciously conjured up into the form of her hated rival. The addition of the child was the creation of the deep and jealous imaginings which had often crossed her mind. She thought of that yet unborn pledge of a once mutual affection as the secret spell by which Caroline, pale and feeble as she was, still held the heart of the Intendant in some sort of allegiance.

"It is that vile, weak thing!" said she bitterly and angrily to herself, "which is stronger than I. It is by that she excites his pity, and pity draws after it the renewal of his love. If the hope of what is not yet be so potent with Bigot, what will not the reality prove ere long? The annihilation of all my brilliant anticipations! I have drawn a blank in life's lottery, by the rejection of Le Gardeur for his sake! It is the hand of that shadowy babe which plucks away the words of proposal from the lips of Bigot, which gives his love to its vile mother, and leaves to me the mere ashes of his passion, words which mean nothing, which will never mean anything but insult to Angelique des Meloises, so long as that woman lives to claim the hand which but for her would be mine!"

Dark fancies fluttered across the mind of Angelique during the absence of the Intendant. They came like a flight of birds of evil omen, ravens, choughs, and owls, the embodiments of wicked thoughts. But such thoughts suited her mood, and she neither chid nor banished them, but let them light and brood, and hatch fresh mischief in her soul.

She looked up to see who was laughing so merrily while she was so angry and so sad, and beheld the Intendant jesting and toying with a cluster of laughing girls who had caught him at the turn of the broad stair of the terrace. They kept him there in utter oblivion of Angelique! Not that she cared for his presence at that moment, or felt angry, as she would have done at a neglect of Le Gardeur, but it was one proof among a thousand others that, gallant and gay as he was among the throng of fair guests who were flattering and tempting him on every side, not one of them, herself included, could feel sure she had made an impression lasting longer than the present moment upon the heart of the Intendant.

But Bigot had neither forgotten Angelique nor himself. His wily spirit was contriving how best to give an impetus to his intrigue with her without committing himself to any promise of marriage. He resolved to bring this beautiful but exacting girl wholly under his power. He comprehended fully that Angelique was prepared to accept his hand at any moment, nay, almost demanded it; but the price of marriage was what Bigot would not, dared not pay, and as a true courtier of the period he believed thoroughly in his ability to beguile any woman he chose, and cheat her of the price she set upon her love.

CHAPTER XXXI. THE BALL AT THE INTENDANT'S PALACE.

The bevy of fair girls still surrounded Bigot on the terrace stair.

Some of them stood leaning in graceful pose upon the balusters. The wily girls knew his artistic tastes, and their pretty feet patted time to the music, while they responded with ready glee to the gossiping of the gay Intendant.

Amid their idle badinage Bigot inserted an artful inquiry for suggestion, not for information, whether it was true that his friend Le Gardeur de Repentigny, now at the Manor House of Tilly, had become affianced to his cousin, Heloise de Lotbiniere? There was a start of surprise and great curiosity at once manifested among the ladies, some of whom protested that it could not be true, for they knew better in what direction Le Gardeur's inclinations pointed. Others, more compassionate or more spiteful, with a touch of envy, said they hoped it was true, for he had been "jilted by a young lady in the city!" Whom they "all knew!" added one sparkling demoiselle, giving herself a twitch and throwing a side glance which mimicked so perfectly the manner of the lady hinted at, that all knew in a moment she meant no other than Angelique des Meloises. They all laughed merrily at the conceit, and agreed that Le Gardeur de Repentigny would only serve the proud flirt right by marrying Heloise, and showing the world how little he cared for Angelique.

"Or how much!" suggested an experienced and lively widow, Madame La Touche. "I think his marrying Heloise de Lotbiniere will only prove the desperate condition of his feelings. He will marry her, not because he loves her, but to spite Angelique."

The Intendant had reckoned securely on the success of his ruse: the words were scarcely spoken before a couple of close friends of Angelique found her out, and poured into her ears an exaggerated story of the coming marriage of Le Gardeur with Heloise de Lotbiniere.

Angelique believed them because it seemed the natural consequence of her own infidelity.

Her friends, who were watching her with all a woman's curiosity and acuteness, were secretly pleased to see that their news had cut her to the quick. They were not misled by the affected indifference and gay laughter which veiled the resentment which was plainly visible in her agitated bosom.

Her two friends left her to report back to their companions, with many exaggerations and much pursing of pretty lips, how Angelique had received their communication. They flattered themselves they had had the pleasure of first breaking the bad tidings to her, but they were mistaken! Angelique's far-reaching curiosity had touched Tilly with its antennae, and she had already learned of the visit of Heloise de Lotbiniere, an old school companion of her own, to the Manor House of Tilly.

She had scented danger afar off from that visit. She knew that Heloise worshipped Le Gardeur, and now that Angelique had cast him off, what more natural than that he should fall at last into her snares--so Angelique scornfully termed the beauty and amiable character of her rival. She was angry without reason, and she knew it; but that made her still more angry, and with still less reason.

"Bigot!" said she, impetuously, as the Intendant rejoined her when the half-hour had elapsed, "you asked me a question in the Castle of St.

Louis, leaning on the high gallery which overlooks the cliffs! Do you remember it?"

"I do: one does not forget easily what one asks of a beautiful woman, and still less the reply she makes to us," replied he, looking at her sharply, for he guessed her drift.

"Yet you seem to have forgotten both the question and the reply, Bigot.

Shall I repeat them?" said she, with an air of affected languor.

"Needless, Angelique! and to prove to you the strength of my memory, which is but another name for the strength of my admiration, I will repeat it: I asked you that night--it was a glorious night, the bright moon shone full in our faces as we looked over the shining river, but your eyes eclipsed all the splendor of the heavens--I asked you to give me your love; I asked for it then, Angelique! I ask for it now."

Angelique was pleased with the flattery, even while she knew how hollow and conventional a thing it was.

"You said all that before, Bigot!" replied she, "and you added a foolish speech, which I confess pleased me that night better than now. You said that in me you had found the fair haven of your desires, where your bark, long tossing in cross seas, and beating against adverse winds, would cast anchor and be at rest. The phrase sounded poetical if enigmatical, but it pleased me somehow; what did it mean, Bigot? I have puzzled over it many times since--pray tell me!"

Angelique turned her eyes like two blazing stars full upon him as if to search for every trace of hidden thought that lurked in his countenance.

"I meant what I said, Angelique: that in you I had found the pearl of price which I would rather call mine than wear a king's crown."

"You explain one enigma by another. The pearl of price lay there before you and you picked it up! It had been the pride of its former owner, but you found it ere it was lost. What did you with it, Bigot?"

The Intendant knew as well as she the drift of the angry tide, which was again setting in full upon him, but he doubted not his ability to escape. His real contempt for women was the lifeboat he trusted in, which had carried himself and fortunes out of a hundred storms and tempests of feminine wrath.

"I wore the precious pearl next my heart, as any gallant gentleman should do," replied he blandly; "I would have worn it inside my heart could I have shut it up there."

Bigot smiled in complacent self-approval at his own speech. Not so Angelique! She was irritated by his general reference to the duty of a gallant gentleman to the sex and not to his own special duty as the admirer of herself.

Angelique was like an angry pantheress at this moment. The darts of jealousy just planted by her two friends tore her side, and she felt reckless both as to what she said and what she did. With a burst of passion not rare in women like her, she turned her wrath full upon him as the nearest object. She struck Bigot with her clenched hand upon the breast, exclaiming with wild vehemence,--