knew the author of so vile a slander! If I thought for a moment that Denys"
"No, no, Gabrielle. Don't even speak such a thought," cried Lucette.
"I had forgotten him," said Gerard. "I will help bear him into the house. We will deal with this afterwards, Gabrielle."
"Except to find the villain who forged the letter, there is no more to do in it, Gerard. They little know me who think I could be moved by so contemptible a lie. I could ask your pardon for having read it to the end—could almost be vexed with you, indeed, for having caused me to read it. Shall I tear it now?"
He was bending over Denys and looked up quickly. "No, I will keep it; and some one some day shall pay a heavy reckoning," he answered as he took it. Then with Lucette's help he lifted Denys and took him into the house. Gabrielle was following, when the Duke said hurriedly to de Proballe—
"Go and detain her on the terrace. I must speak with her; but first will think a space. I am on the rack."
He had been profoundly moved by the scene and was intensely agitated. He had let the letter be read without interference—involving though it did both de Proballe and himself—in the belief that the revelation of Gerard's baseness would change her feelings; and the unshaken confidence she had shown in Gerard's honour was to his jealousy as biting acid to an open wound.
With a bitterness beyond words to describe and far too galling for his selfish soul to endure, he saw now that in causing Gerard to be brought to Morvaix for his own purpose with Gabrielle, he had but plunged a sword into his own heart. The villain had played his part so well that he had won her love; and the wound burned and stabbed and maddened him with its pain.
But he would have his revenge. No man should be
