The soft and charming features, the dark hair and eyes of Jacqueline, her air and manner, were all as I had seen them--not last, when lying, as it would seem, lifeless in the forest, but as they had been in our happier times. She was beautiful as ever; but the slightest symptom of dark down, like a shade, was visible at each corner of her pretty mouth--a symptom not uncommon among Frenchwomen after their twentieth year. What was I to do now? To advance was to run into the jaws of danger; to retire was to perish amid the drifting snow, and already the very marrow seemed frozen in my bones. As she said something to Angelique, a thrill passed through me at the sound of her voice; something of my old love swelled up in my heart, and then pique repressed it; she seemed so happy and so smiling! Had she been compelled to marry Bourgneuf? But, save her love, what was there to tie her unto me after I had disappeared from the château? Suddenly the window against which I pressed (till my nose, had it been observed, must have presented a very livid aspect), and which had not been bolted, parted in two leaves that opened inwards, and heavily and awkwardly, with a shower of snow, I fell headlong into the apartment, and almost at the feet of Jacqueline, who, with her attendant, uttered a cry of terror; but both speedily recovered their presence of mind. "_Mon Dieu!_ what is this?--a drunken soldier!" exclaimed the first, with great asperity. "A mousquetaire rouge--_Grand Dieu!_ 'tis an Englishman! We shall all be murdered. Help! help!" cried Madame Tricot, with new dismay. "Jacqueline--Jacqueline! for Heaven's sake, hush! Have you quite forgotten me, Basil Gauntlet, and our pleasant days in old Bretagne?" I exclaimed, in an excited and imploring tone. Terror, surprise, and anything but real pleasure, filled the eyes of Jacqueline us she recognised me. She trembled, and held up her hands as if to shield her averted face and keep me back; but this was needless, as I never approached, but stood near the open window, through which came the drifting snow and the night wind that waved the hangings. "Oh, Jacqueline!" said I, while an irrepressible emotion of tenderness filled my heart, "how terrible was the time when last I saw you stretched upon the earth in the forest of St. Aubin de Cormier!--and why do you greet me so coldly now?" "Monsieur," said Angelique, taking my hands kindly in hers, "she greets you as people of the world greet those whom they are anxious to forget." "With a fearful and cold welcome, Angelique?" "True, _mon ami_, it is so." "Then I pray you to pardon this intrusion," said I, hurriedly; "in seeking the British lines I have lost my way, and my life is beset by other dangers than the winter storm. Tell me where the Lahn lies, and I shall go; but pity me, Jacqueline, for Heaven and my own heart alone know how well I loved you."