She was, moreover, struck to the heart by the words of Héloise regarding the eagerness of her brother to get word of Angélique. “The Chevalier de Pean might have brought a message, perhaps a love-token from Angélique to Le Gardeur to draw him back to the city,” thought she. If so, she felt instinctively that all their efforts to redeem him would be in vain, and that neither sister's love nor Pierre's remonstrances would avail to prevent his return. He was the slave of the lamp and Angélique its possessor. “Heaven forbid, Héloise!” she said faintly; “Le Gardeur is lost if he return to the city now! Twice lost--lost as a gentleman, lost as the lover of a woman who cares for him only as a pastime and as a foil to her ambitious designs upon the Intendant! Poor Le Gardeur! what happiness might not be his in the love of a woman noble-minded as himself! What happiness were he yours, O darling Héloise!” She kissed her pallid cheeks, wet with tears, which lay by hers on the same pillow, and both remained silently brooding over the thoughts which spring from love and sorrow. “Happiness can never be mine, Amélie,” said Héloise, after a lapse of several minutes. “I have long feared it, now I know it. Le Gardeur loves Angélique; he is wholly hers, and not one little corner of his heart is left for poor Héloise to nestle in! I did not ask much, Amélie, but I have not retained the little interest I believed was once mine! He has thrown the whole treasure of his life at her feet. After playing with it, she will spurn it for a more ambitious alliance! Oh, Amélie!” exclaimed she with vivacity, “I could be wicked! Heaven forgive me! I could be cruel and without pity to save Le Gardeur from the wiles of such a woman!” The night was a stormy one; the east wind, which had lain in a dead lull through the early hours of the evening, rose in all its strength at the turn of the tide. It came bounding like the distant thud of a cannon. It roared and rattled against the windows and casements of the Manor House, sounding a deep bass in the long chimneys and howling like souls in torment amid the distant woods. The rain swept down in torrents, as if the windows of heaven were opened to wash away the world's defilements. The stout walls of the Manor House were immovable as rocks, but the wind and the rain and the noise of the storm struck an awe into the two girls. They crept closer together in their bed; they dared not separate for the night. The storm seemed too much the reflex of the agitation of their own minds, and they lay clasped in each other's arms, mingling their tears and prayers for Le Gardeur until the gray dawn looked over the eastern hill and they slept.