There was a gratified smile on her lovely lip; a _smile_--and at such a time--it went a long way to cure me of my folly. "_O, mon pauvre Basil!_ and so it is really you?" said she, regarding me with a certain vague interest sparkling in her fine dark eyes; "but here, at this time of night," she continued with alarm--"and the count--I expect him every moment! You know that I am married, do you not? Get him away--away from here. Oh, Angelique, where are your brains? Aid us, or he is lost, and I too, perhaps!" "Lost, indeed!" I repeated, bitterly. "Guillaume de Boisguiller, whom you found in that horrid English prison-ship, told you all about my marriage, did he not?" said Jacqueline, earnestly. "Yes, madame." "And you did not die of a broken heart?" "Not at all, madame; I can assure you that broken hearts are articles quite as rare among us in England as with you in France." "Ah, indeed!" said she, smiling again. "'Tis so," said I, with a laugh, which sounded strangely in my own ears, and in which she joined, giving her shoulders the while a little French shrug. And this was the Jacqueline about whom I had sighed, raved, and wept! So here was an extinction of love, and a great demolition of romance at one fell blow. "Tell me where the Lahn lies, madame, and I shall not trouble you with my presence for a moment longer. I am in constant danger of my life, for your husband seeks to destroy me, and without a reason." "_Grands Dieux!_" she exclaimed, with real alarm, "are you the fugitive to secure whom Bourgneuf has dispatched men in so many directions?" "Yes, madame; so permit me to restore to you this emerald ring. It nearly cost me my life, and yet it won me my liberty yesterday at Ysembourg." "From whom?" she asked, hurriedly. "Your gallant old father, the Duc de Broglie." Then drawing her ring from my finger, I laid it on the toilet-table with the air of Cromwell ordering the removal of "that bauble," the mace. "He has no less than three parties out to cut you off--one in the direction of Hesse Cassel--one on the road to Wildungen--and a third at the ford near Zuschen, under Arnaud de Pricorbin." "The bridges----" "Alas! are all destroyed, and though a plank might aid you in crossing the one at Freyenthal, I heard him say that the Baron Konrad watches all the riverside with his foresters to prevent your passage. _Mon Dieu!_ what shall be done?" "Let me forth into the night again," said I, turning; "anywhere is better than here. Adieu, madame, adieu, and for ever!"