"To you, Madam, I seek not to justify myself at all," replied Rose; "I have nought to do with you, nor you with me. To Monsieur de Liancourt, when he thinks fit, I am ready, in private, to assign the motives of my conduct, and to none else am I responsible." "I will teach you that I have to do with you, pretty lady," replied Madame de Chazeul. "Have you not deceived and ill-treated my son? and you shall make him full atonement, before I quit this château." "I have not ill-treated nor deceived him, Madam," replied Rose. "'Tis he that has ill-treated and deceived me, and many others, too. He cannot say that I ever affected to love him, that I ever did more than yield a cold and unwilling acquiescence to that which he made me believe, by a shameless falsehood, was my poor father's will. I learned, at length, what that father's intentions really were; and then, contempt and abhorrence of the deceiver took place of the indifference I before felt towards him. He knows it well," she continued, "that I am bound to him by no tie, no promise, no engagement whatsoever. I was told that I must marry him--" "And so you must, fair lady," exclaimed Madame de Chazeul, in a mocking tone, "and so you must, and so you shall! Assure as my name is Jacqueline de Chazeul, you shall be his wife before two suns set." "Nay, nay, my dear mother," said Chazeul, who had been speaking to the Count de Liancourt at a little distance, "you are too harsh, and too unkind to Mademoiselle d'Albret. She will yield when she finds that it must be so. She will also yield, when she finds she is mistaken about this contract, and that, in reality, her father left it open for Monsieur de Liancourt to bestow her hand on which of his nephews he thought fit. I can assure you, Rose," he continued, in a soft, but emphatic tone, "Monsieur de Marennes believed that my uncle, here, could bequeath his estates to myself, if he chose it; and, therefore, I might as well be meant by the contract as my cousin." "Cease, Sir, cease," answered Rose; "it is vain to stain yourselves with any more deceits. I now know the whole truth, that the good Commander resigned his claims in favour of Madame de Montigni; that to her son those claims appertained when my father signed the contract, and, therefore, it was to him he pledged me. But I have something more to say, and I beg you will mark it. Had you been even meant by the contract, which you know right well you were not, nothing on earth should ever make me give you my hand, now that I know some other of your doings. I would rather, a thousand-fold, vow myself to the seclusion of a convent, than pass my life with a man whom I can neither respect, esteem, nor love." "We will not give you the choice, minion," cried Madame de Chazeul; "your fate is sealed and determined; you are to be his wife, if not by fair means, then by force. This will bear no farther trifling, Liancourt; you must exert your power over her, and compel her to do what is right."