She thought, like other ardent souls, to act on the spur of the moment, trusting to her star, or to that instinct of adroitness which rarely, if ever, fails a woman. Perhaps her heart was never so wrung. At times she seemed stupefied, her eyes were fixed, and then, at the least noise, she shook like a half-uprooted tree which the woodsman drags with a rope to hasten its fall. Suddenly, a loud report from a dozen guns echoed from a distance. Marie turned pale and grasped Francine’s hand. “I am dying,” she cried; “they have killed him!” The heavy footfall of a man was heard in the antechamber. Francine went out and returned with a corporal. The man, making a military salute to Mademoiselle de Verneuil, produced some letters, the covers of which were a good deal soiled. Receiving no acknowledgment, the Blue said as he withdrew, “Madame, they are from the commandant.” Mademoiselle de Verneuil, a prey to horrible presentiments, read a letter written apparently in great haste by Hulot:-- “Mademoiselle--a party of my men have just caught a messenger from the Gars and have shot him. Among the intercepted letters is one which may be useful to you and I transmit it--etc.” “Thank God, it was not he they shot,” she exclaimed, flinging the letter into the fire. She breathed more freely and took up the other letter, enclosed by Hulot. It was apparently written to Madame du Gua by the marquis. “No, my angel,” the letter said, “I cannot go to-night to La Vivetiere. You must lose your wager with the count. I triumph over the Republic in the person of their beautiful emissary. You must allow that she is worth the sacrifice of one night. It will be my only victory in this campaign, for I have received the news that La Vendee surrenders. I can do nothing more in France. Let us go back to England--but we will talk of all this to-morrow.” The letter fell from Marie’s hands; she closed her eyes, and was silent, leaning backward, with her head on a cushion. After a long pause she looked at the clock, which then marked four in the afternoon. “My lord keeps me waiting,” she said, with savage irony. “Oh! God grant he may not come!” cried Francine. “If he does not come,” said Marie, in a stifled tone, “I shall go to him. No, no, he will soon be here. Francine, do I look well?” “You are very pale.” “Ah!” continued Mademoiselle de Verneuil, glancing about her, “this perfumed room, the flowers, the lights, this intoxicating air, it is full of that celestial life of which I dreamed--” “Marie, what has happened?”