“Is it really true, madam, that you have made complaint to your father?”

“Your pertinacity compelled me to do so,” replied Henrietta.

“Is the idea of becoming my wife so very revolting to you?”

“I have told you, sir, I am no longer free.”

“Yes, to be sure!  You love M. Daniel Champcey.  You love him.  He knows it; for you had told him so, no doubt:  and yet he has forsaken you.”

Sometimes, in her innermost heart, Henrietta had accused Daniel.  But what she thought she would permit no one else to think.  She replied, therefore, haughtily,—­

“It was a point of honor with M. Champcey, and it was so with me.  If he had hesitated, I would have been the first one to say to him, ’Duty calls; you must go.’”

Sir Thorn shook his head with a sardonic smile, and said,—­

“But he did not hesitate.  It is ten months now since he left you; and no one knows for how many more months, for how many years, he will be absent.  For his sake you suffer martyrdom; and, when he returns, he may have long since forgotten you.”

Her eyes beaming with faith, Henrietta rose to her full height, and replied,—­

“I believe in Daniel as surely as in myself.”

“And if they convinced you that you were mistaken?”

“They would render me a very sad service, which would bring no reward to any one.”

Sir Thorn’s lips moved, as if he were about to answer.  A thought seemed to stop him.  Then in a stifled voice, with a gesture of despair, he added,—­

“Keep your illusions, madam; and farewell.”

He was going to leave the room; but she threw herself in his way, crossed her arms, and said to him in an imperative tone,—­

“You have gone too far, sir, to retrace your steps.  You are bound now to justify your insidious insinuations, or, to confess that they were false.”

Then he seemed to make up his mind, and said, speaking rapidly,—­

“You will have it so?  Well, be it so.  Know, then, since you insist upon it, that M. Daniel Champcey has been deceiving you most wickedly; that he does not love you, and probably never did love you.”

“That is what you say,” replied Henrietta.

Her haughty carriage, the disdain, rather than disgust, with which she spoke, could not fail to exasperate M. Elgin.  He checked himself, however, and said, in a short and cutting tone,—­

“I say so because it is so; and any one but you, possessing a less noble ignorance of evil, would long since have discovered the truth.  To what do you attribute Sarah’s implacable enmity?  To the memory of your offences on the occasion of her wedding?  Poor child!  If that had been all, her indifference would have given you back your place months ago.  Jealousy alone is capable of that fierce and insatiable hatred which cannot be disarmed by tears or submission,—­that hatred which time increases, instead of diminishing.  Between Sarah and you, Miss Henrietta, there stands a man.”