"Why?"
"Because your own love for Paul Déroulède has blinded you Ah! you must pardon me, mademoiselle; you sought this conversation and not I, and I fear me I have wounded you. Yet I would wish you to know how deep is my sympathy with you, and how great my desire to render you a service if I could."
"I was about to ask a service of you, monsieur."
"Then command me, I beg of you."
"You are Paul's friend—persuade him that that woman in his house is a standing danger to his life and liberty."
"He would not listen to me."
"Oh! a man always listens to another."
"Except on one subject—the woman he loves."
He had said the last words very gently but very firmly. He was deeply, tenderly sorry for the poor, deformed, fragile girl, doomed to be a witness of that most heartrending of human tragedies, the passing away of her own scarce-hoped-for happiness. But he felt that at this moment the kindest act would be one of complete truth. He knew that Paul Déroulède's heart was completely given to Juliette de Marny; he too, like Anne Mie, instinctively mistrusted the beautiful girl and her strange, silent ways, but, unlike the poor hunchback, he
