"By-the-bye, I have come round to your way
of thinking, Rose, about that new servant of
mine—there is something false in his face. I
wish I had been as quick to detect it as you
were."

Rose glanced at him affrightedly. "Has
he done anything suspicious? Have you caught
him watching you? Tell me the worst
Louis."

"Hush! hush! my dear, not so loud.
Don't alarm yourself; he has done nothing
suspicious."

"Turn him off—pray, pray turn him off,
before it is too late!"

"And be denounced by him, in revenge,
the first night he goes to his section. You
forget that servants and masters are equal
now. I am not supposed to keep a servant
at all. I have a citizen living with me who
lays me under domestic obligations, for which
I make a pecuniary acknowledgment. No!
no! if I do anything, I must try if I can't
entrap him into giving me warning. But we
have got to another unpleasant subject already
—suppose I change the topic again? You
will find a little book on that table there, in
the corner—tell me what you think of it."

The book was a copy of Corneille's Cid,
prettily bound in blue morocco. Rose was
enthusiastic in her praises. "I found it in a
bookseller's shop, yesterday," said her brother,
"and bought it as a present for you.
Corneille is not an author to compromise any
one, even in these times. Don't you remember
saying, the other day, that you felt ashamed
of knowing but little of our greatest dramatist?"
Rose remembered well, and smiled
almost as happily as in the old times over her
present. "There are some good engravings
at the beginning of each act," continued
Trudaine, directing her attention rather earnestly
to the illustrations, and then suddenly leaving
her side when he saw that she became
interested in looking at them.

He went to the window—listened—then
drew aside the curtain, and looked up and
down the street. No living soul was in sight.
"I must have been mistaken," he thought,
returning hastily to his sister; "but I
certainly fancied I was followed in my walk
to-day by a spy."

"I wonder," asked Rose, still busy over
her book; "I wonder, Louis, whether my
husband would let me go with you to see
Le Cid the next time it is acted?"

"No!" cried a voice at the door; "not if
you went on your knees to ask him!"

Rose turned round with a scream. There
stood her husband on the threshold, scowling
at her, with his hat on, and his hands thrust
doggedly into his pockets. Trudaine's
servant announced him, with an insolent smile,
during the pause that followed the discovery.
"Citizen-superintendent Danville, to visit
the citoyenne, his wife," said the fellow,
making a mock bow to his master.

Rose looked at her brother, then advanced
a few paces towards the door. "This is a
surprise," she said faintly; "has anything
happened? We—we didn't expect you—"
Her voice failed her, as she saw her husband
advancing, pale to his very lips with
suppressed anger.

"How dare you come here, after what I
told you?" he asked in quick low tones.

She shrank at his voice almost as if he had
struck her. The blood flew into her brother's
face as he noticed the action, but he controlled
himself, and, taking her hand, led her in
silence to a chair.

"I forbid you to sit down in his house,"
said Danville, advancing still; "I order you
to come back with me! Do you hear? I order
you."

He was approaching nearer to her, when
he caught Trudaine's eye fixed on him, and
stopped. Rose started up, and placed herself
between them.

"Oh, Charles! Charles!" she said to her
husband. "Be friends with Louis to-night,
and be kind again to me—I have a claim to
ask that much of you, though you may not
think it!"

He turned away from her, and laughed
contemptuously. She tried to speak again,
but Trudaine touched her on the arm, and
gave her a warning look.

"Signals!" exclaimed Danville; "secret
signals between you!"

His eye, as he glanced suspiciously at his
wife, fell on Trudaine's gift-book, which she
still held unconsciously.

"What book is that?" he asked.

"Only a play of Corneille's," answered
Rose; "Louis has just made me a present of
it."

At this avowal, Danville's suppressed anger
burst beyond all control.

"Give it him back!" he cried, in a voice of
fury. "You shall take no presents from him;
the venom of the household spy soils everything
he touches. Give it him back!" She
hesitated. "You won't?" He tore the book
from her with an oath—threw it on the floor—
and set his foot on it.

"Oh, Louis! Louis! for God's sake
remember!"

Trudaine was stepping forward as the book
fell to the floor. At the same moment his
sister threw her arms round him. He stopped,
turning from fiery red to ghastly pale.

"No! no! Louis," she said, clasping him
closer; "not after five years' patience. No—
no!"

He gently detached her arms.

"You are right, love. Don't be afraid, it
is all over now."

Saying that, he put her from him, and in
silence took up the book from the floor.

"Won't that offend you even?" said
Danville, with an insolent smile. "You have a
wonderful temper—any other man would
have called me out!"

Trudaine looked back at him steadily; and,