“My fortune is yours, Angelique!  Oh! assure me once again that you do not love him—­that you never loved him!” he pleaded in a faltering voice, fixing a look of painful anxiety upon her.

He had no intention of putting her out of countenance by the course he took; he knew quite well that a woman like Angelique is never more at her ease than when she has a chance of telling an untruth of this nature.  Besides, he had prefaced this appeal by the magic words, “My fortune’ is yours!” and the hope thus aroused was well worth a perjury.  So she answered boldly and in a steady voice, while she looked straight into his eyes—­

“Never!”

“I believe you!” exclaimed Jeannin, going down on his knees and covering with his kisses the hand he still held.  “I can taste happiness again.  Listen, Angelique.  I am leaving Paris; my mother is dead, and I am going back to Spain.  Will you follow me thither?”

“I—–­follow you?”

“I hesitated long before finding you out, so much did I fear a repulse.  I set out to-morrow.  Quit Paris, leave the world which has slandered you, and come with me.  In a fortnight we shall be man and wife.”

“You are not in earnest!”

“May I expire at your feet if I am not!  Do you want me to sign the oath with my blood?”

“Rise,” she said in a broken voice.  “Have I at last found a man to love me and compensate me for all the abuse that has been showered on my head?  A thousand times I thank you, not for what you are doing for me, but for the balm you pour on my wounded spirit.  Even if you were to say to me now, ‘After all, I am obliged to give you up’ the pleasure of knowing you esteem me would make up for all the rest.  It would be another happy memory to treasure along with my memory of our love, which was ineffaceable, although you so ungratefully suspected me of having deceived you.”

The treasurer appeared fairly intoxicated with joy.  He indulged in a thousand ridiculous extravagances and exaggerations, and declared himself the happiest of men.  Mademoiselle de Guerchi, who was desirous of being prepared for every peril, asked him in a coaxing tone—­

“Who can have put it into your head to be jealous of the commander?  Has he been base enough to boast that I ever gave him my love?”

“No, he never said anything about you; but someway I was afraid.”

She renewed her assurances.  The conversation continued some time in a sentimental tone.  A thousand oaths, a thousand protestations of love were, exchanged.  Jeannin feared that the suddenness of their journey would inconvenience his mistress, and offered to put it off for some days; but to this she would not consent, and it was arranged that the next day at noon a carriage should call at the house and take Angelique out of town to an appointed place at which the treasurer was to join her.

Maitre Quennebert, eye and ear on the alert, had not lost a word of this conversation, and the last proposition of the treasurer changed his ideas.