In the few simple words of commendation that the Princess had spoken to her, Madame Gaumont had learnt that it was also the wish of Lucienne’s affianced husband, the Marquis de Château-Foix, that the girl should go to England. And as the banker’s widow dearly loved all circumstances attending wooings, betrothals, marriages, and the like, she looked forward to the arrival of the happy suitor with more pleasure, had she but known it, than the _future_ herself. But Lucienne made something of a fight for the situation next morning. The weary air of one who has not slept was attributed by her hostess, and with partial accuracy, to her grief at parting with Madame Elisabeth. Being conscious of this Lucienne was able to answer her sympathetic questions about Gilbert naturally enough. But the day dragged on, and still Gilbert did not come. How thankful she was that she had burnt her letter! She was now a prey to all the instincts of conventionality, which had never made themselves heard in her overstrung condition of the previous night. It was her dead mother’s wish which had delayed the marriage; how could she have dreamed of outraging it? And Gilbert—what would he have thought of a girl who offered herself in that fashion? At times she was almost cheerful at the thought of her escape, and, ironically enough, when Madame Gaumont was thinking complacently, “The poor child is reviving already at the prospect of seeing her betrothed,” Lucienne was congratulating herself that the day would see him, after all, in no closer relationship. It was late in the afternoon before the expected visitor was announced to Madame Gaumont, where she sat in her partially dismantled boudoir doing accounts in preparation for her departure, and where Lucienne, her head on her hand, was gazing out of the window—“looking for her lover,” thought her hostess. But the lover, when he entered, was something of a surprise. He was not the handsome young nobleman whom she had imagined to herself. Gilbert’s serious manner and his rather severe style of dress usually gave him the appearance of an older man, and to-day, fresh from the scene of Louis’ arrest, he was more than usually grave. However, Madame Gaumont had hardly thrown down her pen and risen with delight to receive him before she decided that he had, after all, an air of distinction. Gilbert kissed her hand, and Lucienne’s. “You will forgive the confusion in which you find us, Monsieur le Marquis, will you not?” asked the good lady cheerfully. “I need hardly apologise to you, since you know that I—we—I should say, are leaving on the day after to-morrow. It is a great pleasure to me to have the companionship of Mademoiselle d’Aucourt—though, to be sure, I am very sorry to be the instrument of taking her away from you! . . . And now,” she added, beaming, “since your time is so short, I will not take from you any of your precious moments. Au revoir, Monsieur.”