to make him aware of the favourable impression
he had produced. Gaston was, however,
sincerely and seriously attached to his
cousin, and he had, moreover, passed the age
when youths are given to fall in love with
women some ten years their senior. He
therefore showed himself less sensible of the
great dame's condescension than might have
been expected; and when on various subsequent
occasions she renewed her advances,
they were met with a coolness that drove at
once her love and her pride to the point of
some desperate resolve, which the discovery
of the position he and Geneviève held with
regard to each other, put the finishing
stroke to.

Hence her visit to the sage of the Rue
des Truands, a man celebrated for his skill in
the compounding of such devilish contrivances
as suited the taste and spirit of the
age, ever more ready to appeal for aid to the
angels of darkness than to those of light,
and having far stronger faith in the power of
Satan and his myrmidons than in that of the
Blessed Virgin and all the legion of saints.

On the day appointed, Madame de
Vaucrasson, who had passed some hours of not
very enviable anxiety, torn alternately
between hope, fear, jealousy, and anticipated
triumph, started once more for the dwelling
of the man of magic. As before, the door
opened noiselessly at her knock, and the
dwarf's cold little hand took her fevered one,
to lead her through the dreary labyrinth.

These details had, however, passed without
her notice. Would the sage accord her
desire? Might she hope through him to
win Gaston? That was all her thought;
and, on entering the room, her emotion was
so strong that she could hardly command her
voice to ask the question.

The answer filled her with a thrill of wild,
fierce joy.

"I have studied the matter closely," the
old man said, " and, notwithstanding all the
difficulties and dangers—for there are
dangers, and to me especially, in the work—I
have decided on accepting your commission.
Success I can promise you; but my reward
must be in proportion to the labour and the
risk."

"Name your terms."

He mentioned a sum that would have
startled an applicant less bent on the attainment
of her desires; but the marquise, without
a moment's hesitation, acceded to the
demand.

"And the ring?" she asked.

"The ring, as I told you, shall be made the
instrument of accomplishing your object.
Return here this day week with an order for
the sum we have agreed upon; and the ring,
charged with the power to perform the
mission, is yours."

She clasped her hands, with a gleam of
triumph in her flashing black eyes.

The evening of the seventh day found her
once more on her way to the magician's.
The old man took from a little box the ring,
and handed it to her. Never had it looked
so magnificent. A thousand gorgeous tints
played through the opal, every diamond
flashed and sparkled with increased lustre,
while the emerald eyes of the serpent, gleamed
with a living light, almost terrible to look
at. Madame de Vaucrasson turned it about,
and contemplated it lovingly.

"Whatever man wears, or even has about
his person, that ring," the sage said, "must,
so long as it remains in his possession, love
you passionately, no matter what may have
been his previous sentiments, or what the
obstacles that lie between you. Beware,
therefore, into whose hands it falls."

She gave him the order for the sum they
had agreed upon, and prepared to depart.

"I expect, madame, that you will come
and give me an account of your success. I
shall require this."

The tone was so quietly authoritative, that
she felt herself compelled to make the desired
promise; and, concealing the jewel in her
bosom, she hastened home with all speed.

How to convey it to Gaston ? That was the
next step. She thought of various expedients,
but none wholly satisfied her. She
resolved, at all events, never to separate
herself from it, so that whatever occasion chance
might offer, supposing she did not immediately
hit upon a deliberate plan of action, she
might profit by.

That night there was a fête at the hôtel of
the Duchesse de Maubreuil, the house where
she had first met Gaston. Would he be
there ? Probably; his family was connected
with that of the Due, and she knew he was
always a welcome guest.

Her toilette that evening was performed
with a care greater than she was wont to
bestow on it. She wished to keep up some
illusion even in her own eyes; she wished,
when the ring did its work—the work she
knew it was, by no power of hers, charged to
perform — to feel or to fancy that her
woman's charms had some share in the effect;
She looked in her glass with pride and
triumph. Hope and security had lent a new
lustre to her beauty. The diamonds that
blazed in her luxuriant dark hair were not
more brilliant than her eyes; and her cheek
wore a bloom that needed no aid from art.
Most men who saw her that night might
have thought the aid of the ring superfluous.

As she entered the apartments of the Hôtel
Maubreuil, there was a general stir and
murmur. Gaston was there. He heard it;
looked where he saw other eyes directed; and,
for the first time, was struck by the beauty
and majesty of the woman whose unconcealed
preference he had so coldly and constantly
discouraged. His eye followed her through
the crowd; he saw how it bent in homage
before her; he saw with what dignified
indifference she received it—how valueless in