"True, Jacqueline--to what end indeed! But to give you up is impossible. To love you has become a part of my nature, my existence--myself; and being with you daily, has made that which was a passion, a confirmed habit." "In mercy do not speak thus, I love you--love you dearly; yet our marriage is impossible, and I can see no future but despair." "I know it," said I, gloomily and with clenched teeth. "Cursed be the fate that threw us together--the folly that kept me lingering here." "Better would it have been that we had never met." "That I had never rescued you, do you mean?" "Or I you?" she would exclaim with a sad smile; and then a long, long kiss would close these interviews of mingled passion, joy, and pain. One evening, after escorting Jacqueline to the door of the chateau, instead of entering with her I returned to the garden, for the purpose of dreaming over all that had passed between us, and also considering seriously the future, and what could be the end of a love so rash and desperate as ours. Twilight had set in, and from the garden I issued to the long avenue that led to the Rennes-road. It was dark and gloomy, and the clipped yews assumed all kinds of quaint and terrible forms. While loitering there, I became conscious that a man was observing me from behind one of the orange tubs, one of which, I have said, stood between each of the yews. Having no desire to meet any one, I was turning off hastily towards the chateau, when suddenly the lurker stepped before me, saying-- "_Pardieu_, my pretty one, it seems that he you wait for is not likely to come. Permit me to offer you my arm." He was a tall, swinging fellow of a repulsive aspect, with a long knife in his belt and a broad hat slouched over his gloomy eyes. "Stand back, monsieur," said I, firmly; "back, or it may be the worse for you. I am one of the household of Madame la Comtesse de Bourgneuf." "I know that well enough; but don't be alarmed, my fair one--I am only a sportsman." "Then permit me to pass." "_Oui_--but I am a sportsman who looks for better game than a clumsy soubrette," said the fellow, whom I now perceived to be tipsy. "Indeed, monsieur." "_Vraiment_--perhaps Mademoiselle de Broglie herself. Does she often promenade here in the evening?" Gathering my skirts up to my knees, as they sorely impeded me, I was running quickly away, encumbered by my stays and the paddings with which Angelique in her zeal had furnished them, when this man, who was both strong and active, overtook and confronted me again. "Stop--speak!" he thundered out with a strange oath which I had somewhere heard before. "_Pardieu_, my saucy one, I shall teach you that I have not dragged a chain in the casemates of St. Malo, and at the aqueducts of Dol, for nothing." "You are----" said I, gasping. "Theophile Hautois," said he, closing the question.