After having followed Diana about like her very shadow for several days, Norbert at last ventured to approach her in the Champs Elysees.  She was angry, but not to such an extent that he feared to repeat his offence.  Then she wept, but her tears could not force him to avoid her.  At first her system of defence was very strong, then it gradually grew weaker.  She granted him another interview, and then two others followed.  But what were these meetings worth to him?  They took place in a church or a public gallery, in places where they could scarcely exchange a grasp of the hand.  At length she told him that she had thought of a place which would render their interviews less perilous, but that she hardly dared tell him where it was.  He pressed her to tell him, and, by degrees, she permitted herself to be persuaded.  Her idea was to become the friend of the Duchess of Champdoce.

Norbert now felt that she was more an angel than a woman, and it was agreed that on the next day he himself would introduce her to his wife.

CHAPTER XIV.

False friend, old lover.

It was on a Wednesday morning that the Duke de Champdoce, instead of, as usual, going to his own or one of his friends’ clubs to breakfast, took his seat at the table where his wife was partaking of her morning meal.  He was in excellent spirits, gay, and full of pleasant talk, a mood in which his wife had never seen him since their ill-fated marriage.  The Duchess could not understand this sudden change in her husband; it terrified and alarmed her, for she felt that it was the forerunner of some serious event, which would change the current of her life entirely.

Norbert waited until the domestics had completed their duty and retired, and as soon as he was alone with his wife he took her hand and kissed it with an air of gallantry.

“It has been a long time, my dear Marie, since I had resolved to open my heart to you entirely, and now a full and open explanation has become absolutely necessary.”

“An explanation!” faltered Marie.

“Yes, certainly; but do not let the word alarm you.  I fear that I must have appeared in your eyes the most morose and disagreeable of husbands.  Permit me to explain.  Since we came here, I have gone about my own affairs, I have gone out early and returned extremely late, and sometimes three days have elapsed without our even setting eyes on each other.”

The young Duchess listened to him like a woman who could not believe her ears.  Could this be her husband who was heaping reproaches upon himself in this manner?

“I have made no complaint,” stammered she.

“I know that, Marie; you have a noble and forgiving nature; but, however, it is impossible, as a woman, that you should not have condemned me.”

“Indeed, but I have not done so.”

“So much the better for me.  On this I shall not have to find either defence or excuse for my conduct; you must know, however, that you are ever foremost in my thoughts, even when I am away from you.”