An elderly serving man handed her a note containing these words: * * * * * "I have not seen you for several days, my dear child, not having felt as well as usual. Can you see me this morning? Most affectionately yours, "MAILLEFORT. "P.S.--Do not take the trouble to answer in writing. If you will see your old friend, simply say 'yes' to the bearer." * * * * * Herminie, in her grief, was inclined to find some excuse for deferring M. de Maillefort's visit, but remembering that the marquis, belonging to the aristocracy as he did, was doubtless acquainted with Gerald, and that she might obtain some more definite information concerning her lover without revealing her secret, she said to the servant: "I shall expect to see M. le Marquis de Maillefort sometime during the day." But as she returned to the room where Mlle. de Beaumesnil was awaiting her, Herminie said to herself: "What if M. de Maillefort should come while Ernestine is here? Oh, well, it will not matter much, after all, if she does see him; besides, the dear child is so retiring that, as soon as a stranger comes, she is sure to leave me alone with him." So Herminie continued her conversation with Mlle. de Beaumesnil without making any allusion to M. de Maillefort's approaching visit, for fear that Ernestine would leave sooner than she had intended. CHAPTER IX. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING. "Forgive me for having deserted you so unceremoniously, my dear Ernestine," Herminie remarked to her friend. "It was a letter, and I had to send a verbal reply." "Do pray go on with your story, Herminie," replied Ernestine. "You have no idea how deeply interested I am." "And it is such a relief to me to tell you my troubles." "Yes, I was sure it would be," responded Ernestine, with ingenuous tenderness. "I was just telling you that I learned at Madame Herbaut's little entertainment that this young man's name was Gerald Auvernay. It was M. Olivier who told me so, on introducing him to me." "What! he knows M. Olivier?" "They are intimate friends, for Gerald was a soldier in the same regiment as Olivier. On leaving the service, he entered the office of a notary, so he told me, but for some time past he had given up an employment which was so distasteful to him, and had found occupation on the fortifications under an officer of engineers he had known in Africa. So you see, Ernestine, that Gerald's position and mine were identical, and free as he seemed to be, I was surely excusable for allowing myself to yield to a fatal fondness for him." "But why fatal, Herminie?"