Rose seemed utterly downcast at the sight of the little piece of painted cardboard, as though she had received certain intelligence of a coming misfortune.  She soon, however, recovered herself, and was again shuffling the pack,—­cut it, taking care to do so with her left hand, spread them out before her, and again commenced counting:  one, two, three.  This time the cards appeared to be more propitious, and held out promises of success for the future.

“I am loved,” read she, as she gazed anxiously upon them,—­“very much loved!  Here is rejoicing, and a letter from a dark man!  See, here he is,—­the knave of clubs.  Always the same,” she continued; “I cannot strive against fate.”

Then, rising to her feet, she drew from a crack in the wall, which formed a safe hiding-place for her secrets, a soiled and crumpled letter, and, unfolding it, she read for perhaps the hundredth time these words:—­

“Mademoiselle,—­

“To see you is to love you.  I give you my word of honor that this is true.  The wretched hovel where your charms are hidden is no fit abode for you.  A home, worthy in every way to receive you, is at your service—­Rue de Douai.  It has been taken in your name, as I am straightforward in these matters.  Think of my proposal, and make what inquiries you like concerning me.  I have not yet attained my majority, but shall do so in five months and three days, when I shall inherit my mother’s fortune.  My father is wealthy, but old and infirm.  From four to six in the afternoon of the next few days I will be in a carriage at the corner of the Place de Petit Pont.

“Gaston de Gandelu.”

The cynical insolence of the letter, together with its entire want of form, was a perfect example of the style affected by those loiterers about town, known to the Parisians as “mashers;” and yet Rose did not appear at all disgusted by the reception of such an unworthily worded proposal, but, on the contrary, rather pleased by its contents.  “If I only dared,” mused she, with a sigh,—­“ah, if I only dared!” For a time she sat deeply immersed in thought, with her face buried in her hands, until she was aroused from her meditations by the sound of an active and youthful step upon the creaking stairs.  “He has come back,” she gasped; and with the agile movement of a cat she again concealed the letter in its hiding-place, and she had scarcely done so, when Paul Violaine entered the miserable room.  He was a young man of twenty-three, of slender figure, but admirably proportioned.  His face was a perfect oval, and his complexion of just that slight olive tint which betrays the native of the south of France.  A slight, silky moustache concealed his upper lip, and gave his features that air of manliness in which they would have otherwise been deficient.  His curly chestnut hair fell gracefully over a brow upon which an expression of pride was visible, and enhanced the peculiar, restless glance of his large dark eyes.