"One who loves me, Claude!" replied Pauline, wiping the tears from her eyes; "Oh no, no--But what right had I to think that you would love me? None, none, I will allow. Separated from each other so long, I had no title to suppose that you would ever think of the child to whom you were betrothed, but of whom you were afterwards commanded not to entertain a remembrance--would think of her, after those engagements were broken by a power you could not choose but obey. But still, De Blenau, you should not have written those letters filled with professions of regard, and vows to retain the engagements your father had formed for you, notwithstanding the new obstacles which had arisen. You should not, indeed, unless you had been very sure of your own heart; for it was cruelly trifling with mine," and she gently disengaged herself from his arms.--"I only blame you," she added, "for ever trying to gain my affection, and not for now being wanting in love to a person you have never seen since she was a child." "Never seen you!" replied De Blenau with a smile: "Pauline, you are as mistaken in that, as in any doubt you have of me. A year has not passed since last we met. Remember that summer sunset on the banks of the Rhone: remember the masked Cavalier who gave you the ring now on your finger: remember the warm hills of Languedoc, glowing with a blush only equalled by your cheek, when he told you that that token was sent by one who loved you dearly, and would love you ever--that it came from Claude de Blenau, who had bid him place the ring on your finger, and a kiss on your hand, and renew the vow that he had long before pledged to you.--Pauline, Pauline, it was himself." "But why, dear Claude," demanded Pauline eagerly, forgetting coldness, and pride, and suspicion, in the memory his words called up, "why did you not tell me? why did you not let me know that it was you?" "Because if I had been discovered," answered the Count, "it might have cost me my life, years of imprisonment in the Bastille, or worse--the destruction of her I loved? The slightest cry of surprise from you might have betrayed me." "But how did you escape, without your journey being known?" demanded Pauline; "they say in Languedoc, that the Cardinal has bribed the evil spirits of the air to be his spies on men's actions."