The moonlight glittered on the fountains, falling with measured splash into their marble basins; the lime-leaves, faintly stirred by the sultry breezes, perfumed the night with their voluptuous fragrance, and the roses, twining round the carved and gilded balustrade, shook off their bowed head drops of dew, that gleamed brightly as the diamonds among the curls of the woman who leaned above, resting her delicate rouged cheek on her jewelled hand, alone--a very rare circumstance with the Marquise de la Rivière. Osmin did not admire the rare solitude, for he rattled his silver bells and barked--an Italian greyhound's shrill, fretful bark--as his quick ears caught the distant sound of steps coming swiftly over the turf below, and his mistress smiled as she patted his head: "Ah, Osmin!--here he is?" A man came out from under the heavy shadow of lime sand chestnuts, whose darkness the moon's rays had no power to pierce, crossed the lawn just under the balcony, and, coming up the terrace-steps, stood near her--a man, young, fair, handsome, whose age and form the uniform of a Captain of the Guards would have suited far better than the dark robes of a priest, which he wore; his lips were pressed closely together, and his face was pale with a pallor that consorted painfully with the warm passionate gleam of his eyes. "So! You are late in obeying my commands, monsieur!" Surely no other man in France would have stood silent beside her, under the spell of her dazzling glances, with such a picture before him as Madame la Marquise, in her azure silk and her point d'Angleterre, with her diamond pendants shaking among her hair, and her arched eyebrows lifted imperiously! But he did; his lips pressed closer, his eyes gleaming brighter. She changed her tone; it was soft, seductive, reproachful, and the smile on her lips was tender--as tender as it ever could be with the mockery that always lay under it; and it broke at last the spell that bound him, as she whispered, "Ah! Gaston, you love me no longer!" "Not love you? O God!" They were but five words, but they told Madame la Marquise of a passion such as she had never roused, despite all her fascinations and intrigues, in the lovers that crowded round her in the salons within, or at Versailles, over the trees yonder, where love was gallantry, and all was light comedy, with nothing so foolish as tragedy known. He clasped her hands so closely that the sharp points of the diamond rings cut his own, though he felt them not.