“St. Etienne!” replied a voice, which thrilled his ear, in well-remembered accents; and, at the same moment, a trembling hand removed the cowl which covered a face glowing with confusion, and confined the light ringlets, that again fell profusely around the neck and brow.

“Adele!” exclaimed La Tour, springing towards her; then suddenly retreating to the utmost limits of the room, while every nerve shook with powerful emotion.  He closed his eyes, as if fearing to look upon a face that he had last seen in the brightness of his hopes; and which twelve years had left unchanged, except to mature the loveliness of earliest youth into more womanly beauty and expression, and to deepen the pensiveness, that always marked it, into a shade of habitual melancholy.

“Adele, are you too leagued against me?” resumed La Tour, with recovered firmness, and looking stedfastly on her; “have you entered into the secret counsels of my foe? and are you sent hither to torture me with your presence? to remind me, by it, of past, but never to be forgotten, injuries—­of the worse than infernal malice, with which he has ever pursued me, and for which, I exult in the hope of one day calling him to a deadly reckoning!”

“Speak you thus of my husband?” she asked, in an accent of reproof; “and think you such language is meet to be addressed to the ear of a wife?”

“Aye, of your husband, lady,” said La Tour, yielding to his chafed and bitter feelings; “he was once my friend, too; the friend who won my confidence, only to abuse it, who basely calumniated me, in absence, who treacherously stole from me the dearest treasure of my heart.  Adele,” he continued more calmly, “I do not love you now; that youthful passion, which was once the sun of my existence, has lost its strength in other ties, and sterner duties; but, can I meet your eye again, and not recall the perfidy which drove me forth, from friends and country, an adventurer in the pathless wilderness? can I look upon your face, and not curse the wretch, who won from me its smiles, who burst our love asunder, in all its purity and fervor, while yet unruffled by one shade of doubt, one fear of disappointment?”

“La Tour,” said Mad. d’Aulney, striving to conceal her emotion, “why all this bitter invective? now, indeed, most vain and useless! why wound my ear, by accusations which I surely do not merit, and which is a most ungrateful theme, when uttered against one whom I am bound, by every tie of duty and interest, to respect!  If you believe me innocent”—­

“I do believe you are most innocent!” interrupted La Tour, impetuously; “yours was a heart too guileless to deceive, too firm in virtuous principle to be sullied, even by a union with the vicious and depraved.  No, Adele, I have never cherished one feeling of resentment towards you; you, like myself, was the victim of that baseness, which invented a tale of falsehood to deceive you, of that meanness, which flattered your father’s ambitious hopes, by a boast of rank and wealth; while my only offer was a sincere heart, my only wealth, an untarnished name, and a sword, which I hoped would one day gather me renown, in the field of honor.”