Nina again courtesied, but in the brilliant flashing of her dark eyes it was plain to mark the consciousness that some secret was withheld from her. The _soubrette_ class are instinctive readers of motives; “their only books are '_ladies_' looks,” but they con them to perfection. It was, then, with a studied pertinacity that Nina proceeded to arrange drawers and fold dresses, and fifty other similar duties, the discharge of which she saw was torturing her mistress. “I should wish to be alone, Nina, and undisturbed,” said Kate, at last, her patience being entirely exhausted. Nina made her very deepest reverence, and withdrew. Kate waited for a few seconds, till all sound of her retiring steps had died away, then arose, and locked the door. She was alone; the packet which the Abbé had delivered lay on the table before her; she bent down over it, and wept. The utter misery of sorrow is only felt where self-reproach mingles with our regrets. All the pangs of other misfortunes are light in comparison with this. The irrevocable past was her own work; she knew it, and cried till her very heart seemed bursting. CHAPTER IX. SECRETS OF HEAD AND HEART I must ask of my reader to leave this chamber, where, overwhelmed by her sorrows, poor Kate poured out her grief in tears, and follow me to a small but brilliantly lighted apartment, in which a little party of four persons was seated, discussing their wine, and enjoying the luxury of their cigars. Be not surprised when we say that one of the number was a lady. Madame de Heidendorf, however, puffed her weed with all the zest of a smoker; the others were the Archduke Ernest, a plain, easy-tempered looking man, in the gray undress of an Austrian General, the Foreign Minister, Count Nõrinberg, and our old acquaintance, the Abbé D'Esmonde.