On one of those evenings when Angelique was seated on a tabourette, working with her pretty nimble fingers a piece of lace, and when Jacqueline had tired of reading aloud the travels of the Comte de Caylus, which were then in the zenith of their fame, and had permitted the volume to drop listlessly from her hand, we began to converse on the usual topics, dread of the countess's sudden return, of her discovering me, and the means by which to escape from any Breton seaport to England. Mistrusting her discretion, it was evident that the curé of St. Solidore had not informed her of _his_ share in my concealment, or of the circumstance at all, so madam was yet in ignorance. "Were I once clear of your cruisers from Brest and St. Malo in any boat, however small, I might reach England, or be picked up," said I, heedless that the distance from Portsmouth to Cherbourg alone was seventy-five miles; "most loth am I to trespass further on your kindness." "Think of what I owe you, my life!" said Mademoiselle de Broglie, and as our hands chanced to touch each other, we both trembled without knowing why. "I have met with so little kindness in the world, mademoiselle, that there is no chance of my stock of gratitude becoming exhausted. My birthright is that of the disinherited--obscurity, poverty, and mortification," said I, sadly. "Ah! What is this you tell me?" she exclaimed, turning her fine eyes full upon me. "My family have made me, as it were, an Ishmael--an outcast from amid them; but they shall find----" I clenched my teeth and paused in the act of saying something bitter, for somehow my cousin Aurora's kind face came to memory. "Ah! Mademoiselle de Broglie, if there was a being in the world to whom I would lay open my whole heart--to whom I would reveal the sad story of my past life, it is to you--you to whom I owe so much." "Your sad story, do you say?" "Yes." "At your years!" she exclaimed, while Angelique relinquished her netting, and her dark eyes dilated as she listened. "Yes, mademoiselle." "_Ah, mon Dieu!_ this is terrible!" I paused again, for I scarcely knew what to say. Aware that all the armies of Europe had long been teeming with desperate soldiers of Fortune, the exiles of Scotland and Ireland, among whom were the claimants of many attainted titles, from dukedoms and marquisates, down to simple knighthood, I felt almost ashamed to reveal my real rank, lest she might disbelieve me, and I should thus lose her esteem. I deemed it better to remain as she deemed me, the poor gentleman, the "_simple soldat_." "Orphaned in my youth, the victim of unmerited wrong and unjust malevolence in manhood, there is not a human being save my comrades, now I hope in England, far away, to whom my heart clings--not one who cares for me, or for whom I can care----". "Except me, I pray you, monsieur, except me," said she, smiling, and with growing colour. "And _me_," added Angelique. I kissed the hand of each, and was replying,