Mademoiselle Hennequin did not venture below, until she had gone into her own room. Here she wept freely for a minute or two, and then she bathed her eyes in cold water, and used the napkin in drying them. Owing to this circumstance, I was fortunately a witness of all that passed in her interview with her lover. The instant Betts Shoreham saw that he was to have an interview with the charming French girl, instead of with Julia Monson, his countenance brightened; and, as if supposing the circumstance proof of his success, he seized the governess' hand, and carried it to his lips in a very carnivorous fashion. The lady, however, succeeded in retaining her hand, if she did not positively preserve it from being devoured. "A thousand, thousand thanks, dearest Mademoiselle Hennequin," said Betts, in an incoherent, half-sane manner; "you have read my letter, and I may interpret this interview favorably. I meant to have told all to Mrs. Monson, had SHE come down, and asked her kind interference--but it is much, much better as it is." "You will do well, monsieur, not to speak to Madame Monson on the subject at all," answered Mademoiselle Hennequin, with an expression of countenance that I found quite inexplicable; since it was not happy, nor was it altogether the reverse. "This must be our last meeting, and it were better that no one knew any thing of its nature." "Then my vanity--my hopes have misled me, and I have no interest in your feelings!" "I do not say THAT, monsieur; oh! non--non--I am far from saying as much as THAT"--poor girl, her face declared a hundred times more than her tongue, that she was sincere--"I do not--CANNOT say I have no interest in one, who so generously overlooks my poverty, my utter destitution of all worldly greatness, and offers to share with me his fortune and his honorable position--" "This is not what I ask--what I had hoped to earn--gratitude is not love." "Gratitude easily becomes love in a woman's heart"--answered the dear creature, with a smile and a look that Betts would have been a mere dolt not to have comprehended--"and it is my duty to take care that MY gratitude does not entertain this weakness." "Mademoiselle Hennequin, for mercy's sake, be as frank and simple as I know your nature prompts--DO you, CAN you love me?" Of course such a direct question, put in a very categorical way, caused the questioned to blush, if it did not induce her to smile. The first she did in a very pretty and engaging manner, though I thought she hesitated about indulging in the last. "Why should I say 'yes,' when it can lead to no good result?" "Then destroy all hope at once, and say NO." "That would be to give you--to give us both unnecessary pain. Besides, it might not be strictly true--I COULD love--Oh! No one can tell how my heart COULD love where it was right and proper."