"I will see you outside, Amelie. The Sieur La Force is with me, and cannot stay." Angelique dreaded an interview with Amelie.

"No, I will speak to you here. It will be better here in God's temple than elsewhere. The Sieur La Force will wait for you if you ask him; or shall I ask him?" A faint smile accompanied these words of Amelie, which she partly addressed to La Force.

La Force, to Angelique's chagrin, understanding that Amelie desired him to wait for Angelique outside, at once offered to do so.

"Or perhaps," continued Amelie, offering her hand, "the Sieur La Force, whom I am glad to see, will have the politeness to accompany the Lady de Tilly, while I speak to Mademoiselle des Meloises?"

La Force was all compliance. "He was quite at the service of the ladies," he said politely, "and would esteem it an honor to accompany the noble Lady de Tilly."

The Lady de Tilly at once saw through the design of her niece. She acceded to the arrangement, and left the Cathedral in company with the Sieur La Force, whom she knew as the son of an old and valued friend.

He accompanied her home, while Amelie, holding fast to the arm of Angelique until the church was empty of all but a few scattered devotees and penitents, led her into a side chapel, separated from the body of the church by a screen of carved work of oak, wherein stood a small altar and a reliquary with a picture of St. Paul.

The seclusion of this place commended itself to the feelings of Amelie.

She made Angelique kneel down by her side before the altar. After breathing a short, silent prayer for help and guidance, she seized her companion by both hands and besought her "in God's name to tell her what she had done to Le Gardeur, who was ruining himself, both soul and body."

Angelique, hardy as she was, could ill bear the searching gaze of those pure eyes. She quailed under them for a moment, afraid that the question might have some reference to Beaumanoir, but reassured by the words of Amelie, that her interview had relation to Le Gardeur only, she replied: "I have done nothing to make Le Gardeur ruin himself, soul or body, Amelie. Nor do I believe he is doing so. Our old convent notions are too narrow to take out with us into the world. You judge Le Gardeur too rigidly, Amelie."

"Would that were my fault, Angelique!" replied she earnestly, "but my heart tells me he is lost unless those who led him astray remit him again into the path of virtue whence they seduced him."

Angelique winced, for she took the allusion to herself, although in the mind of Amelie it referred more to the Intendant. "Le Gardeur is no weakling to be led astray," replied she. "He is a strong man, to lead others, not to be led, as I know better than even his sister."

Amelie looked up inquiringly, but Angelique did not pursue the thought nor explain the meaning of her words.

"Le Gardeur," continued Angelique, "is not worse, nay, with all his faults, is far better than most young gallants, who have the laudable ambition to make a figure in the world, such as women admire. One cannot hope to find men saints, and we women to be such sinners. Saints would be dull companions. I prefer mere men, Amelie!"

"For shame, Angelique! to say such things before the sacred shrine,"

exclaimed Amelie, indignantly stopping her. "What wonder that men are wicked, when women tempt them to be so! Le Gardeur was like none of the gallants you compare him with! He loved virtue and hated vice, and above all things he despised the companionship of such men as now detain him at the Palace. You first took him from me, Angelique! I ask you now to give him back to me. Give me back my brother, Angelique des Meloises!"

Amelie grasped her by the arm in the earnestness of her appeal.

"I took him from you?" exclaimed Angelique hotly. "It is untrue! Forgive my saying so, Amelie! I took him no more than did Heloise de Lotbiniere or Cecile Tourangeau! Will you hear the truth? He fell in love with me, and I had not the heart to repulse him,--nay, I could not, for I will confess to you, Amelie, as I often avowed to you in the Convent, I loved Le Gardeur the best of all my admirers! And by this blessed shrine,"

continued she, laying her hand upon it, "I do still! If he be, as some say he is, going too fast for his own good or yours or mine, I regret it with my whole heart; I regret it as you do! Can I say more?"

Angelique was sincere in this. Her words sounded honest, and she spoke with a real warmth in her bosom, such as she had not felt in a long time.

Her words impressed Amelie favorably.

"I think you speak truly, Angelique," replied she, "when you say you regret Le Gardeur's relapse into the evil ways of the Palace. No one that ever knew my noble brother could do other than regret it. But oh, Angelique, why, with all your influence over him did you not prevent it?

Why do you not rescue him now? A word from you would have been of more avail than the pleading of all the world beside!"

"Amelie, you try me hard," said Angelique, uneasily, conscious of the truth of Amelie's words, "but I can bear much for the sake of Le Gardeur! Be assured that I have no power to influence his conduct in the way of amendment, except upon impossible conditions! I have tried, and my efforts have been vain as your own!"

"Conditions!" replied Amelie, "what conditions?--but I need not ask you!

He told me in his hour of agony of your inexplicable dealing with him, and yet not so inexplicable now! Why did you profess to love my brother, leading him on and on to an offer of his hand, and then cruelly reject him, adding one more to the list of your heartless triumphs? Le Gardeur de Repentigny was too good for such a fate from any woman, Angelique!"

Amelie's eyes swam in tears of indignation as she said this.

"He was too good for me!" said Angelique, dropping her eyes. "I will acknowledge that, if it will do you any good, Amelie! But can you not believe that there was a sacrifice on my part, as well as on his or yours?"

"I judge not between you, Angelique! or between the many chances wasted on you; but I say this Angelique des Meloises, you wickedly stole the heart of the noblest brother in New France, to trample it under your feet!"

"'Fore God, I did not, Amelie!" she replied indignantly. "I loved and do love Le Gardeur de Repentigny, but I never plighted my troth to him, I never deceived him! I told him I loved him, but I could not marry him!

And by this sacred cross," said she, placing her hands upon it, "it is true! I never trampled upon the heart of Le Gardeur; I could kiss his hands, his feet, with true affection as ever loving woman gave to man; but my duty, my troth, my fate, were in the hands of another!"

Angelique felt a degree of pleasure in the confession to Amelie of her love for her brother. It was the next thing to confessing it to himself, which had been once the joy of her life, but it changed not one jot her determination to wed only the Intendant, unless--yes, her busy mind had to-day called up a thousand possible and impossible contingencies that might spring up out of the unexpected use of the stiletto by Corriveau.

What if the Intendant, suspecting her complicity in the murder of Caroline, should refuse to marry her? Were it not well in that desperate case to have Le Gardeur to fall back upon?

Amelie watched nervously the changing countenance of Angelique. She knew it was a beautiful mask covering impenetrable deceit, and that no principle of right kept her from wrong when wrong was either pleasant or profitable.

The conviction came upon Amelie like a flash of inspiration that she was wrong in seeking to save Le Gardeur by seconding his wild offer of marriage to Angelique. A union with this false and capricious woman would only make his ruin more complete and his latter end worse than the first. She would not urge it, she thought.

"Angelique," said she, "if you love Le Gardeur, you will not refuse your help to rescue him from the Palace. You cannot wish to see him degraded as a gentleman because he has been rejected by you as a lover."

"Who says I wish to see him degraded as a gentleman? and I did not reject him as a lover! not finally--that is, I did not wholly mean it. When I sent to invite his return from Tilly it was out of friendship,--love, if you will, Amelie, but from no desire that he should plunge into fresh dissipation."

"I believe you, Angelique! You could not, if you had the heart of a woman loving him ever so little, desire to see him fall into the clutches of men who, with the wine-cup in one hand and the dice-box in the other, will never rest until they ruin him, body, soul, and estate."

"Before God, I never desired it, and to prove it, I have cursed De Pean to his face, and erased Lantagnac from my list of friends, for coming to show me the money he had won from Le Gardeur while intoxicated.

Lantagnac brought me a set of pearls which he had purchased out of his winnings. I threw them into the fire and would have thrown him after them, had I been a man! 'fore God, I would, Amelie! I may have wounded Le Gardeur, but no other man or woman shall injure him with my consent."

Angelique spoke this in a tone of sincerity that touched somewhat the heart of Amelie, although the aberrations and inconsistencies of this strange girl perplexed her to the utmost to understand what she really felt.

"I think I may trust you, Angelique, to help me to rescue him from association with the Palace?" said Amelie, gently, almost submissively, as if she half feared a refusal.

"I desire nothing more," replied Angelique. "You have little faith in me, I see that,"--Angelique wiped her eyes, in which a shade of moisture could be seen,--"but I am sincere in my friendship for Le Gardeur. The Virgin be my witness, I never wished his injury, even when I injured him most. He sought me in marriage, and I was bound to another."

"You are to marry the Intendant, they say. I do not wonder, and yet I do wonder, at your refusing my brother, even for him."

"Marry the Intendant! Yes, it is what fools and some wise people say. I never said it myself, Amelie."

"But you mean it, nevertheless; and for no other would you have thrown over Le Gardeur de Repentigny."

"I did not throw him over," she answered, indignantly. "But why dispute?

I cannot, Amelie, say more, even to you! I am distraught with cares and anxieties, and know not which way to turn."

"Turn here, where I turn in my troubles, Angelique!" replied Amelie, moving closer to the altar. "Let us pray for Le Gardeur." Angelique obeyed mechanically, and the two girls prayed silently for a few moments, but how differently in spirit and feeling! The one prayed for her brother,--the other tried to pray, but it was more for herself, for safety in her crime and success in her deep-laid scheming. A prayer for Le Gardeur mingled with Angelique's devotions, giving them a color of virtue. Her desire for his welfare was sincere enough, and she thought it disinterested of herself to pray for him.

Suddenly Angelique started up as if stung by a wasp. "I must take leave of you, my Amelie," said she; "I am glad I met you here. I trust you understand me now, and will rely on my being as a sister to Le Gardeur, to do what I can to restore him perfect to you and the good Lady de Tilly."

Amelie was touched. She embraced Angelique and kissed her; yet so cold and impassive she felt her to be, a shiver ran through her as she did so. It was as if she had touched the dead, and she long afterwards thought of it. There was a mystery in this strange girl that Amelie could not fathom nor guess the meaning of. They left the Cathedral together. It was now quite empty, save of a lingering penitent or two kneeling at the shrines. Angelique and Amelie parted at the door, the one eastward, the other westward, and, carried away by the divergent currents of their lives, they never met again.

CHAPTER XLIV. THE INTENDANT'S DILEMMA.

"Did I not know for a certainty that she was present till midnight at the party given by Madame de Grandmaison, I should suspect her, by God!"

exclaimed the Intendant, as he paced up and down his private room in the Palace, angry and perplexed to the uttermost over the mysterious assassination at Beaumanoir. "What think you, Cadet?"

"I think that proves an alibi," replied Cadet, stretching himself lazily in an armchair and smoking with half-shut eyes. There was a cynical, mocking tone in his voice which seemed to imply that although it proved an alibi, it did not prove innocence to the satisfaction of the Sieur Cadet.