But the Marquis would not consent to this immediate dismissal, and appeared to be about to speak.

“Go!” said the Duchess, with an air of command.  “Leave me at once!” Then, as he made no effort to obey her, she went on, “If you really love me, let my honor be as dear to you as your own, and never try to see me again.  The peril we are now in shows how necessary this last determination of mine is.  I am the Duchess de Champdoce, and I will keep the name that has been intrusted to me pure and unsullied, nor will I stoop to treachery or deception.”

“Why do you use the word deception?” asked he.  “I do, it is true, despise the woman who smiles upon the husband she is betraying, but I respect and honor the woman who risks all to follow the fortunes of the man she loves.  Lay aside, Marie, name, title, fortune, and fly with me.”

“I love you too much, George,” answered she gently, “to ruin your future, for the day would surely come when you would regret all your self-denial, for a woman weighed down with a sense of her dishonor is a heavy burden for a man to bear.”

George de Croisenois did not understand her thoroughly.

“You do not trust me,” said he.  “You would be dishonored.  Shall I not share a portion of the world’s censure?  And, if you wish me, I will be a dishonored man also.  To-night I will cheat at play at the club, be detected, and leave the room an outcast from the society of all honorable men for the future.  Fly with me to some distant land, and we will live happily under whatever name you may choose.”

“I must not listen to you,” cried she wildly.  “It is impossible now.”

“Impossible!—­and why?  Tell me, I entreat you.”

“Ah, George,” sobbed she, “if you only knew——­”

He placed his arm around her waist, and was about to press his lips on that fair brow, when all at once he felt Marie shiver in his clasp, and, raising one of her arms, point towards the door, which had opened silently during their conversation, and upon the threshold of which stood Norbert de Champdoce, gloomy and threatening.

The Marquis saw in an instant the terrible position in which his insensate folly had placed the woman he loved.

“Do not come any nearer,” said he, addressing Norbert; “remain where you are.”

A bitter laugh from the Duke made him realize the folly of his command.  He supported the Duchess to a couch, and seated her upon it.  She recovered consciousness almost immediately, and, as she opened her eyes, George read in them the most perfect forgiveness for the man who had ruined her life and hopes.

This look, and the fond assurance conveyed in it, restored all George’s coolness and self-possession, and he turned towards Norbert.

“However compromising appearances may seem, I am the only one deserving punishment; the Duchess has nothing to reproach herself with in any way; it was without her knowledge, and without any encouragement from her, that I dared to enter this house, knowing as I did that the servants were all absent.”