At last she shrugged her shoulders, and letting
her arms fall to her side in a gesture of helplessness and resignation--
"Soit; I will go with you," was all she said.
Side by side we went down the steps as a pair of lovers might have gone,
save that her face was white and drawn, and that her eyes looked straight
before her, and never once, until we reached the gravel path below, at her
companion. Side by side we walked along one of the rose-bordered alleys,
until at length I stopped.
"Mademoiselle," I said, speaking in the natural tones of that good-for-
naught Gaston de Luynes, "I have already decided, and you have my
permission to accompany your father."
At the sound of my voice she started, and with her left hand clutching at
the region of her heart, she stood, her head thrust forward, and on her
face the look of one who is confronted with some awful doubt. That look
was brief, however, and swift to replace it was one of hideous revelation.
"In God's name, who are you?" she cried in accents that bespoke internal
agony.
"Already you have guessed it, Mademoiselle," I answered, and I would have
added that which should have brought comfort to her distraught mind, when--
"You!" she gasped in a voice of profound horror.
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