As she finished, her eyes insensibly wandered to the picture of the Prince de Chateau-Guerrand, which adorned the boudoir, but falling short of its principal figure, rested on the dead musketeer in the foreground. The Marquise also happened to be looking at the same object, so that neither observed how the other’s gaze was employed, nor guessed that besides figure, manner, features, voice, and gestures, there was yet a stronger point in which they bore too close and fatal a resemblance. Deep in the heart of each lurked the cherished image of a certain Grey Musketeer. The girl draping her idol, as it were, even to herself, not daring so much as to lift a corner of its veil; yet rejoicing unconsciously in its presence, and trusting with a vague but implicit faith to its protection. The woman alternately prostrating herself at its pedestal, and spurning it beneath her feet, striving, yielding, hesitating, struggling, losing ground inch by inch, and forced against her judgment, against her will, to love him with a fierce, eager, anxious love, embittered by some of the keenest elements of hate. These two hearts were formed in the same mould, were of the same blood, were knit together by the fondest and closest of ties, and one must necessarily be torn and bruised and pierced by the happiness of the other. It was so far fortunate that neither of them knew the very precarious position in which Captain George found himself placed. Under such a ruler as the Débonnaire, it was no jesting matter for any man that his name should be written in full on a _lettre de cachet_, formally signed, sealed, and in possession of an ambitious intriguer, who, having no feelings of personal enmity to the victim, would none the less use his power without scruple or remorse. A woman was, of course, at the bottom of the scrape in which Captain George found himself; but it was also to a woman that he was indebted for timely warning of his danger. Madame de Parabére had not only intimated to him that he must make his escape without delay, but had even offered to sell her jewels that he might be furnished with the means of flight. Such marks of gratitude and generosity were none the less touching that the sacrifice proved unnecessary. A Musketeer was seldom overburdened with ready money, but our Captain of the Grey Company not only bore a Scottish surname, he had also a cross of Scottish blood in his veins. The first helped him to get money, the second enabled him to keep it. Monsieur Las, or Law, as he should properly have been called, like his countrymen, “kept a warm side,” as he expressed it, towards any one claiming a connection, however remote, with his native land, and had given Captain George so many useful hints regarding the purchase and sale of Mississippi stock, that the latter, who was by no means deficient in acuteness, found himself possessed of a good round sum, in lawful notes of the realm, at the