Let her alone, Clément! She refused you
with scorn: be too proud to notice her
now.'

"'Mother, I cannot think of myself; only
of her.'

"'Think of me, then!  I, your mother,
forbid you to go.'

"Clément bowed low, and went out of
the room instantly, as one blinded. She
saw his groping movement, and, for an
instant, I think her heart was touched. But
she turned to me, and tried to exculpate her
past violence by dilating upon her wrongs, and
they certainly were many. The Count, her
husband's younger brother, had invariably tried
to make mischief between husband and wife.
He had been the cleverer man of the two,
and had possessed extraordinary influence
over her husband. She suspected him of
having instigated that clause in her
husband's will, by which the Marquis expressed
his wish for the marriage of the cousins.
The Count had had some interest in the
management of the De Créquy property
during her son's minority. Indeed, I
remembered then, that it was through Count
de Créquy that Lord Ludlow had first heard
of the apartment which we afterwards took
in the Hôtel de Créquy; and then the
recollection of a past feeling came distinctly out
of the mist, as it were; and I called to mind
how, when we first took up our abode in the
Hôtel de Créquy, both Lord Ludlow and I
imagined that the arrangement was
displeasing to our hostess; and how it had
taken us a considerable time before we had
been able to establish relations of friendship
with her. Years after our visit, she began
to suspect that Clément (whom she could
not forbid to visit at his uncle's house,
considering the terms on which his father had
been with his brother;  though she herself
never set foot over the Count de Créquy's
threshold) was attaching himself to
Mademoiselle, his cousin; and she made cautious
inquiries as to the appearance, character,
and disposition of the young lady.
Mademoiselle was not handsome, they said;  but
of a fine figure, and generally considered
as having a very noble and attractive
presence. In character she was daring and
wilful (said one set); original and independent
(said another).  She was much indulged
by her father, who had given her something
of a man's education, and selected for her
intimate friend a young lady below her in
rank, one of the Bureaucracie, a Mademoiselle
Neckar, daughter of the Minister of Finance.
Mademoiselle de Créquy was thus introduced
into all the free-thinking salons of
Paris; people who were always full of plans
for subverting society.  'And did Clément
affect such people?' Madame de Créquy
had asked, with some anxiety. No! Monsieur
de Créquy had neither eyes nor ears,
nor thought for anything but his cousin while
she was by. And she? She hardly took
notice of his devotion, so evident to every
one else. The proud creature!  But perhaps
that was her haughty way of concealing
what she felt. And so Madame de Créquy
listened, and questioned, and learnt nothing
decided, until one day she surprised Clément
with the note in his hand, of which she
remembered the stinging words so well, in
which Virginie had said, in reply to a
proposal Clément had sent her through her
father, that 'When she married, she married
a man, not a petit-maître.'

"Clément was justly indignant at the
insulting nature of the answer Virginie had
sent to a proposal, respectful in its tone, and
which was, after all, but the cool, hardened
lava over a burning heart. He acquiesced
in his mother's desire, that he should not
again present himself in his uncle's salons;
but he did not forget Virginie, though he
never mentioned her name.

"Madame de Créquy and her son were
among the earliest proscrits, as they were of
the strongest possible royalists, and
aristocrats, as it was the custom of the horrid
Sansculottes to term those who adhered to
the habits of expression and action in which
it was their pride to have been educated.
They had left Paris some weeks before they
had arrived in England, and Clément's belief
at the time of quitting the Hôtel de Créqay
had certainly been, that his uncle was not
merely safe, but rather a popular man with
the party in power. And, as all communication
having relation to private individuals of
a reliable kind was intercepted, Monsieur de
Créquy had felt but little anxiety for his
uncle and cousin in comparison with what
he did for many other friends of very different
opinions in politics, until the day when he
was stunned by the fatal information that
even his progressive uncle was guillotined,
and learnt that his cousin was imprisoned by
the licence of the mob, whose rights (as she
called them) she was always advocating.

"When I had heard all this story, I confess
I lost in sympathy for Clément what I gained
for his mother. Virginie's life did not seem
to me worth the risk that Clément's would
run. But when I saw him—sad, depressed,
nay, hopeless—going about like one oppressed
by a heavy dream which he cannot shake off;
caring neither to eat, drink, nor sleep, yet
bearing all with silent dignity, and even
trying to force a poor, faint smile when he
caught my anxious eyes; I turned round
again, and wondered how Madame de Créquy
could resist this mute pleading of her son's
altered appearance. As for my Lord Ludlow
and Monkshaven, as soon as they understood
the case, they were indignant that any mother
should attempt to keep a son out of honourable
danger; and it was honourable, and a
clear duty (according to them) to try to save
the life of a helpless orphan girl, his next of
kin. None but a Frenchman said my lord,
would hold himself bound by an old woman's