“Ah, the wretch!” she repeated.  “The scoundrel, the rascal!”

And, sitting down by Daniel, she asked him to tell her all the details of these attempted assassinations, from which he had escaped only by a miracle.

The Countess Sarah, in fact, never doubted for a moment but that Daniel was as madly in love with her as Planix, as Malgat, and Kergrist, and all the others, had been, she had become so accustomed to find her beauty irresistible and all powerful.  How could it ever have occurred to her, that this man, the very first whom she loved sincerely, should also be the first and the only one to escape from her snares?  She was taken in, besides, by the double mirage of love and of absence.

During the last two years she had so often evoked the image of Daniel, she had so constantly lived with him in her thoughts, that she mistook the illusion of her desires for the reality, and was no longer able to distinguish between the phantom of her dreams and the real person.

In the meantime he entertained her by describing to her his actual position, lamenting over the treachery by which he had been ruined, and adding how hard he would find it at thirty to begin the world anew.

And she, generally, so clearsighted, was not surprised to find that this man, who had been disinterestedness itself, should all of a sudden deplore his losses so bitterly, and value money so highly.

“Why do you not marry a rich woman?” she suddenly asked him.

He replied with a perfection of affected candor which he would not have suspected to be in his power the day before,—­

“What?  Do you—­you, Sarah—­give me such advice?”

He said it so naturally, and with such an air of aggrieved surprise, that she was delighted and carried away by it, as if he had made her the most passionate avowal.

“You love me?  Do you really, really love me?”

The sound of a key turning in the door interrupted them.

And in an undertone, speaking passionately, she said,—­

“Go now!  You shall know by to-morrow who she is whom I have chosen for you.  Come and breakfast with us at eleven o’clock.  Go now.”

And, kissing him on his lips till they burnt with unholy fire, she pushed him out of the room.

The poor man staggered like a drunken man, as he went down the stairs.

“I am playing an abominable game,” he said to himself.  “She does love me!  What a woman!”

It required nothing less to rouse him from his stupor than the sight of Papa Ravinet, who was waiting for him below, hid in a corner of his carriage.

“Is it you?” he said.

“Yes, myself.  And it seems it was well I came.  But for me, the count would have kept you; but I came to your rescue by sending him up a letter.  Now, tell me all.”

Daniel reported to him briefly, while they were driving along, his conversation with the count and with Sarah.  When he had concluded, the old dealer exclaimed,—­