Then, quitting the table, she sat down in a large easy-chair in front of the fire to think over her terrible position, and endeavour to devise some means of escape from it.

When the servants had attended to their duties and left her alone again, she rose languidly and walked slowly to the window--feeling as weak as though she had had a severe illness, after the violent emotions and terrors of the day, and as if she had aged years in the last few hours.

Could it be possible that only that very morning she and de Sigognac had been walking together, with hearts full of happiness and peace--and she had rapturously hailed the appearance of the first spring violet as an omen of good, and gathered the sweet little blossom to bestow upon the devoted lover who adored her?
And now, alas! alas! they were as inexorably and hopelessly separated as if half the globe lay between them.

No wonder that her breast heaved tumultuously with choking sobs, and hot tears rained down over her pallid cheeks, as she wept convulsively at the thought of all she had lost.

But she did not long indulge her grief--she remembered that at any moment she might have need of all her coolness and fortitude--and making a mighty effort, like the brave heroine that she was, she regained control over herself, and drove back the gushing tears to await a more fitting season.