For a moment I did not see her; then I caught the shimmer of her gown from the embrasure of a window, where she stood staring absently down into the street below, and there floated to me a faint perfume which shook me with the agony of recollection. I turned blindly, expecting her father to announce me, but found with astonishment that he had closed the door and left me alone with her. A terrible shyness and indecision seized me. To advance to her boldly, to take her hand—that was the lover’s part, and yet I felt myself utterly unable to fulfil it. Ah, what a horrible chance that she, too, should use that perfume! I had not reckoned upon that!

“Courage! Courage! Courage!” I repeated to myself, and touched the note warm against my heart; but in this supreme crisis, its power failed me.

So I stood where I was, the cold sweat upon my brow, looking foolish enough, as I have since been told, and waited for her to turn and discover me. That she did not turn surprised me more and more, for surely she must have heard the opening and closing of the door. Then, as I saw her more clearly, I perceived that she, too, was agitated, for she carried her handkerchief to her lips once or twice with a hand anything but steady.

Whatever my cowardice, I could not permit her to suffer because of it, so I gripped my courage to me and advanced to her side.

“Mademoiselle,” I began stammeringly.

She turned suddenly and faced me—and I stood struck to stone, staring, not able to believe my eyes; for it was she—my love—Charlotte!

“You!” I said hoarsely at last. “You!”

The blood was coming and going in her cheeks; her eyes were luminous with a strange fire. She held out a trembling hand to me, and when I kissed it I found it cold as ice.

“Did you think it very heartless of me to desert you, M. de Tavernay?” she questioned.

“At first I could scarcely believe it,” I stammered, still staring at her; “but afterwards I saw that you meant to be kind. I should not have won the battle if you had stayed.”

“And you did win it!” she cried.

“Yes; your note helped—and—and the rose leaves,” I added hoarsely.

“I found them—in your bosom,” she said, her color deepening. “I thought—perhaps—you would like to have them.”

“Yes,” I said; “yes;” then stopped, looking at her. “But one may lose a battle even after winning it,” I warned her. “I fear I am losing mine. You are trusting me too far, as you did once before. Do you remember?” and my blood glowed at the recollection.

“Don’t!” she said, and turned away.

“Where is——”

I hesitated, looking about me. I could not say the words.

“Your betrothed?” she finished, turning back, her eyes gleaming in the old manner. “You are longing for her, then?”

“Without a rock to tie to,” I said as calmly as I could, “I shall be swept away in another moment, beyond hope of rescue. I have never seen you so beautiful. I have never loved you——”

She stopped me with a gesture.

“M. de Tavernay,” she said with impressive gravity, “it is my painful duty to tell you that Mlle. de Benseval no longer exists.”

“She is dead!” I murmured dazedly.

“Oh, not in the least. She was never more thoroughly alive than at this moment.”

“Then she is married!” I cried, a great load lifting from my heart. “I see it all—she did love another—she has married him.”

“Wrong again, monsieur. She is still a maiden and does not love another.”

“Come!” I said. “You are playing with me. I warn you, it is dangerous!” and I gripped my arms behind me to keep them from about her.

She noticed the movement and retreated a step.

“Monsieur,” she said, “I will tell you the story—if you will promise to remain where you are until I have finished.”

“And after you have finished?”

“Oh—then—you may do as you please.”

“I promise!” I cried, the blood bounding madly through my veins.

“It seems that your betrothed is a wilful and headstrong creature,” she began, “and when the time came to prepare to marry you she rebelled. She had been permitted to form ideas of her own. She refused to give herself to a man she had never seen, or whom she remembered only as a thin and unattractive boy. So the day before you were to arrive, having failed to exact from her father the promise that the right of choice should be left to her——”

“Yes, he told me,” I interrupted.

“But he did not tell you that she fled?”

“Fled!” I repeated. “Then that is the reason she is not here.”

“I am sure she would never have done it,” my companion continued; “however irregular her training—would never perhaps have thought of a step so desperate, but for a book she happened to find one day in her father’s library. She was attracted first by the illustrations, which were by Gravelot and very beautiful; then she became absorbed in the story, a translation from the English, which related the adventures of a young lady who ran away from her father to avoid a marriage into which he would have forced her.[B] The results of this flight proved so fortunate,—for by it she won the man she really loved,—that Mlle. de Benseval resolved to emulate it. So she mounted her horse one morning and instead of taking her usual ride, dismissed her groom and spurred away to the house of a friend who, she knew, would sympathize with her and perhaps intercede with her father.”

“Oh, it was with him she was in love!” I murmured.

“Not in the least, monsieur; she was in love with no one, and this friend was a woman. But that very evening, strangely enough, she met some one whom she fancied she might love; and in the days that followed, when they were much together, she was drawn very near to him; for she saw that he loved her truly. And at last, in a moment of trial when he held her in his arms, she confessed that she loved him in return.”

“Well,” I said with a sigh of relief, “it appears to me then that I need think no more of Mlle. de Benseval. Let us dismiss her—there is another topic——”

“Wait,” she said; “I fear you will find yourself thinking a great deal about her before long. For after that one moment of utter joy she drew away from her lover, held him at a distance, was unkind to him, although all the while she was longing to throw herself on his bosom and draw his arms close about her!”

“What!” I said incredulously. “She did that? Was she mad, then?”

“No; she was a woman, and she played with him because that is woman’s nature.”

“Yet she knew he loved her!”

“Yes,” she answered, her eyes glowing more and more. “She knew he loved her, deeply and purely, as she could never hope to be loved again; but she resolved to put him to one supreme test. If he stood the test she would adore him, worship him, she would be his, body and soul, through all eternity. If he did not stand it—well, she would still love him!”

“And did he stand it?” I asked, moved more and more by this story, to which at first I had listened but indifferently.

“Let me finish, and you will see. She returned to her home, she opened her heart to her father, who is really the kindest and noblest of men, and he agreed to assist her in the test. So to-day—this evening——”

She faltered, stopped and looked at me, smiling tremulously, her cheeks flooded suddenly with color.

“Yes,” I cried; “this evening——”

“Oh, it is more difficult than I had thought! How shall I go on? Three months ago, monsieur, there was a death in our family.”

“Yes?” I asked, failing to see what this had to do with the story.

“It was that of my father’s elder brother,” she continued unsteadily, without looking at me, “so that my father, who up to that time had been M. de Benseval, succeeded to the title and became—became——”

“M. de Chambray!” I shouted, seeing it all as in a lightning flash; and I sprang toward her, blind with sudden joy.

For an instant she tried to hold me off; but my arms were about her, straining her to me. Then suddenly she yielded, and nestled to me, close—close against my heart.

“Oh, my love!—my love!—my love!” she cried, and raised her lips to mine.

“Did you call, M. de Tavernay?” asked a voice; and I raised my head to see my father’s friend standing upon the threshold, looking at us with smiling face.

“Yes, monsieur,” I answered as intelligibly as I could. “I desired to announce to you that your daughter has decided to marry me.”

“In faith,” he said, a humorous light in his eye, “I somehow suspected it the moment I opened the door.”

With which remark he closed it again, and left us alone together.

THE END.