As Iris pronounced the words, "I know not why you hate him so inveterately," she could not repress a slight shudder, which, however, passed unnoticed by Madame de Hansfeld. "You ask me wherefore I hold him in such detestation?" cried the princess, almost wildly. "I said so but from curiosity, godmother. But, if you hate, you would also be avenged." "Avenged! oh, yes, I would have vengeance great and startling as the ill he has done me." "If I can serve you, speak." "You, my poor girl?" "Command, and I obey. Iris is yours--yours in all things; her life depends on yours--her breath is as your breath--she sees but with your eyes--she has no will but yours." Without replying, Madame de Hansfeld extended her beautiful hand to Iris, who raised it to her moist red lips with an expression of respect and devotion more than filial; then, suddenly springing up, she exclaimed,-- "Gracious Heaven, godmother! your hand is cold as death!--you shiver, too! You must go to bed--indeed you must." "Not yet--listen to me. I know not what occasions within me the foreboding that the arrival of Charles de Brévannes here is the certain precursor of great perils and dangers to myself. Your services may, probably, be more needful to me than ever,--you must know all. Yes, you must be made acquainted with the crime of this man; and then you will be able to comprehend that vengeance now becomes a sort of expiation on my part." Having thus spoken, the princess seated herself beside the fire, while Iris, taking a mantle of velvet lined with ermine, wrapped it carefully and tenderly around her godmother; for, spite of the glowing fire which now blazed on the hearth, the piercing cold of a winter's night made these large chambers dreary and chill. Madame de Hansfeld remained for several minutes plunged in a deep reverie. Iris loved Madame de Hansfeld with a sort of tenderness at once respectful, passionate, and savage. It was, indeed, one of those blindly absorbing attachments which appear to shut the heart against every tender feeling, and to infuse an almost ferocity against all human creatures but the one beloved object. The princess believed she had for ever attached this young girl to her by the profoundest gratitude, having taken her from an early age and entirely brought her up, and in this she was not mistaken. But she was wholly ignorant of the violence of this sentiment, or how completely it had occupied the heart of her young _protégée_, to the exclusion of all others. And Iris had sedulously concealed from her protectress the fits of jealous fury she experienced at the smallest preference bestowed by her mistress on any other than herself.