a table at which a dark-faced man wrote busily—a paper was handed over, a password asked and given.

"Is it enough now?" asked Jeanne the waiting-maid. And the dark-faced man answered, without looking up, "It is enough—the cup is full."

CHAPTER II

A FORCED ENTRANCE

Mademoiselle de Rochambeau had been a week in Paris, but as yet she had tasted none of its gaieties—for gaieties there were still, even in these clouding days when the wind of destiny blew up the storm of the Terror. The King and Queen were prisoners in the Temple, many of the noblesse had emigrated, but what remained of the Court circles still met and talked, laughed, gamed, and flirted, as if there were no deluge to come. To-day Mme de Montargis received, and Mlle de Rochambeau, dressed by a Parisian milliner for the first time, was to be presented to her cousin's friends.

She had not even seen her betrothed as yet,—that dim figure which she had contemplated for so many years of cloistered monotony, until it had become the model upon which her dreams and hopes were hung. Now that the opening of the door might at any moment reveal him in the flesh, the dreams wore suddenly thin, and she was conscious of an overpowering suspense. She hoped for so much, and all at once she was afraid. Husbands, to be sure, were not romantic, not the least in the world, and, according to the nuns, it would be the height of impropriety to wish that they should be. One married because it was the convenable thing to do, but to fall in love,—fi donc, Mademoiselle, the idea! Aline laughed, for she remembered Sister Séraphine's face, all soft and shocked and wrinkled, and then in a minute she was grave again. Dreams may be forbidden, but when one is nineteen they have a way of recurring, and it is certain that Mlle de Rochambeau's heart beat faster than Sister Séraphine would have approved, as she stood by Mme de Montargis' gilded chair and heard the servant announce "M. le Vicomte de Sélincourt."

He kissed Madame's hand; and then hers. A sensation that was almost terror caught the colour from her face. Was this little, dark, bowing fop the dream hero? His eyes were like a squirrel's—black, restless, shallow—and his mouth displeased her. Something about its puckered outline made her recoil from the touch of it upon her hand, and the Marquise, glancing at her, saw all the young face pale and distressed. She smiled maliciously, and reflected on the folly of youth and the kind connivance of Fate.

Sélincourt, for his part, was well enough satisfied. Mademoiselle was too tall for his taste, it was true; her beautifully shaped shoulders and bust too thin; but of those dark grey Irish eyes there could be no two opinions, and his quick glance approved her on the whole. She would play her part as Mme la Vicomtesse very creditably when a little modish polish had softened her convent stateliness, and for the rest he had no notion of being in love with his bride. It was long, in fact, since his small, jaded heart had beaten the faster for any woman, and his eyes left her face with a genuine indifference which did not escape either woman.

"Mademoiselle, I felicitate Paris, and myself," he said, with a formal bow. Mademoiselle made him a stately reverence, and the long-dreamed-of meeting was over.

He turned at once to her cousin.

"You have written to our friend, Madame?"

"I wrote immediately, M. le Vicomte."

He lowered his voice.

"The paper with the cipher on it, did I give you my copy as well as your own?"

"But no, mon ami. Why, have you not got it?"

Sélincourt raised his shoulders.

"Certainly not, since I ask if you have it," he returned.

Madame's delicate chin lifted a little.

"And when did you find this out?" she asked.

"I had no occasion to use the code until yesterday, and then..." the lift of his shoulders merged into a decided shrug.

The Marquise turned away with a slight frown. It was annoying, but then the Vicomte was always careless, and no doubt the paper would be found; it must be somewhere, and her guests were assembling.

Of such stuff were the conspirators of those days,—triflers, fops, and flirts; men who mislaid the papers which meant life and death to them and to a hundred more; women who chattered secrets in the hearing of their lackeys and serving-maids, unable to realise that these were listeners more dangerous than the chairs and tables of their gaily furnished salons. What wonder that of all the aristocratic plots and counterplots of the Revolution there was not one but perished immature? Powdered nobles and painted dames, they played at conspiracy as they played at love and hate, played with gilded counters instead of sterling gold, and in the end they paid the reckoning in blood.

Meanwhile Madame received.

The gay, softly lighted salon filled apace. Day was still warm outside, but the curtains were drawn, and clusters of wax candles, set in glittering chandeliers, threw their becoming light upon the bare shoulders of the ladies and lent the rouge a more natural air.

Play was the order of the day, the one real passion which held that world. Life and death were trifles, birth and marriage a jest, love and hate the flicker of shadow and sunshine over shallow waters; but the gambler could still feel joy of gain or rage of loss, and the faro table demanded an earnestness which religion was powerless to evoke. Mlle de Rochambeau stood behind her cousin's chair. The scene fascinated, interested, excited her. The swiftly passing cards, the heaps of gold, the flushed faces, the half-checked ejaculations, all drew and enchained her attention; for this was the great world, and these her future friends.

At first the game itself was a mystery, but by degrees her quick wits grasped the principle, and she watched with a breathless interest. Madame de Montargis won and won. As the rouleaux of gold grew beside her, she slid them into an embroidered bag, where her monogram shone in pearls and silver and was wreathed by clustering forget-me-nots.

Now she was not in such good luck. She knit her brows, set her teeth into the full lower lip, pouted ominously,—and cheated. Quite distinctly Mademoiselle saw her change a card, and play on smilingly, as the change brought fickle fortune to her side once more. Aline de Rochambeau's hand went up to her throat with a nervous gesture. She wore around it a single string of pearls—milk-white, and of great value. In her surprise and agitation she caught sharply at the necklet, and in a moment the thread snapped, and the pearls rolled here and there over the polished floor. Aileen Desmond had worn them last, a dozen years before, and the silken string had had time to rot since then.

The players took no notice, but Mademoiselle de Rochambeau gave a soft little cry and went down on her knees to pick up her pearls. The greater number were to her hand, but a few had rolled away to the corner of the room. Mademoiselle put what she had picked up into her muslin handkerchief, and slipped it into her bosom. Then she went timidly forward, casting her looks here, there,