weariness flowed over his fevered cheeks; he was bowed down with

fatigue upon fatigue, his throat seemed to be glued by the desert
thirst. The guide meanwhile stood motionless, listening to these

complaints with an ironical expression, studying the while, with
the apparentindifference of an Oriental, the scarcely

perceptible indications in the lie of the sands, which looked
almost black, like burnished gold.

"I have made a mistake," he remarked coolly. "I could not
make out the track, it is so long since I came this way; we are

surely on it now, but we must push on for two hours."
"The man is right," thought M. de Montriveau.

So he went on again, struggling to follow the pitiless native.
It seemed as if he were bound to his guide by some thread like

the invisible tie between the condemned man and the headsman.
But the two hours went by, Montriveau had spent his last drops of

energy, and the skyline was a blank, there were no palm-trees, no
hills. He could neither cry out nor groan, he lay down on the

sand to die, but his eyes would have frightened the boldest;
something in his face seemed to say that he would not die alone.

His guide, like a very fiend, gave him back a cool glance like a
man that knows his power, left him to lie there, and kept at a

safe distance out of reach of his desperatevictim. At last M.
Montriveau recovered strength enough for a last curse.

The guide came nearer, silenced him with a steady look, and said,
"Was it not your own will to go where I am taking you, in spite

of us all? You say that I have lied to you. If I had not, you
would not be even here. Do you want the truth? Here it is. WE

HAVE STILL ANOTHER FIVE HOURS' MARCH BEFORE US, AND WE CANNOT GO
BACK. Sound yourself; if you have not courage enough, here is my

dagger."
Startled by this dreadful knowledge of pain and human strength,

M. de Montriveau would not be behind a savage; he drew a fresh
stock of courage from his pride as a European, rose to his feet,

and followed his guide. The five hours were at an end, and still
M. de Montriveau saw nothing, he turned his failing eyes upon his

guide; but the Nubian hoisted him on his shoulders, and showed
him a wide pool of water with greenness all about it, and a noble

forest lighted up by the sunset. It lay only a hundred paces
away; a vast ledge of granite hid the gloriouslandscape. It

seemed to Armand that he had taken a new lease of life. His
guide, that giant in courage and intelligence, finished his work

of devotion by carrying him across the hot, slippery, scarcely
discernible track on the granite. Behind him lay the hell of

burning sand, before him the earthlyparadise of the most
beautiful oasis in the desert.

The Duchess, struck from the first by the appearance of this
romantic figure, was even more impressed when she learned that

this was that Marquis de Montriveau of whom she had dreamed
during the night. She had been with him among the hot desert

sands, he had been the companion of her nightmare wanderings; for
such a woman was not this a delightful presage of a new interest

in her life? And never was a man's exterior a better exponent of
his character; never were curious glances so well justified. The

principalcharacteristic of his great, square-hewn head was the
thick, luxuriant black hair which framed his face, and gave him a

strikingly close resemblance to General Kleber; and the likeness
still held good in the vigorousforehead, in the outlines of his

face, the quiet fearlessness of his eyes, and a kind of fiery
vehemence expressed by strongly marked features. He was short,

deep-chested, and muscular as a lion. There was something of the
despot about him, and an indescribablesuggestion of the security

of strength in his gait, bearing, and slightest movements. He
seemed to know that his will was irresistible, perhaps because he

wished for nothing unjust. And yet, like all really strong men,
he was mild of speech, simple in his manners, and kindly natured;

although it seemed as if, in the stress of a great crisis, all
these finer qualities must disappear, and the man would show

himself implacable, unshaken in his resolve, terrific in action.
There was a certain drawing in of the inner line of the lips

which, to a close observer, indicated an ironical bent.
The Duchesse de Langeais, realising that a fleeting glory was to

be won by such a conquest, made up her mind to gain a lover in
Armand de Montriveau during the brief interval before the

Duchesse de Maufrigneuse brought him to be introduced. She would
prefer him above the others; she would attach him to herself,

display all her powers of coquetry for him. It was a fancy, such
a merest Duchess's whim as furnished a Lope or a Calderon with

the plot of the Dog in the Manger. She would not suffer another
woman to engross him; but she had not the remotest intention of

being his.
Nature had given the Duchess every qualification for the part of

coquette, and education had perfected her. Women envied her, and
men fell in love with her, not without reason. Nothing that can

inspire love, justify it, and give it lasting empire was wanting
in her. Her style of beauty, her manner, her voice, her bearing,

all combined to give her that instinctive coquetry which seems to
be the consciousness of power. Her shape was graceful; perhaps

there was a trace of self-consciousness in her changes of
movement, the one affectation that could be laid to her charge;

but everything about her was a part of her personality, from her
least little gesture to the peculiar turn of her phrases, the

demure glance of her eyes. Her great lady's grace, her most
striking characteristic, had not destroyed the very French quick

mobility of her person. There was an extraordinary fascination
in her swift, incessant changes of attitude. She seemed as if

she surely would be a most delicious mistress when her corset and
the encumbering costume of her part were laid aside. All the

rapture of love surely was latent in the freedom of her
expressive glances, in her caressing tones, in the charm of her

words. She gave glimpses of the high-born courtesan within her,
vainly protesting against the creeds of the duchess.

You might sit near her through an evening, she would be gay and
melancholy in turn, and her gaiety, like her sadness, seemed

spontaneous. She could be gracious, disdainful, insolent, or
confiding at will. Her apparent good nature was real; she had no

temptation to descend to malignity. But at each moment her mood
changed; she was full of confidence or craft; her moving

tenderness would give place to a heart-breaking hardness and
insensibility. Yet how paint her as she was, without bringing

together all the extremes of feminine nature? In a word, the
Duchess was anything that she wished to be or to seem. Her face

was slightly too long. There was a grace in it, and a certain
thinness and fineness that recalled the portraits of the Middle

Ages. Her skin was white, with a faint rose tint. Everything
about her erred, as it were, by an excess of delicacy.

M. de Montriveau willingly consented to be introduced to the
Duchesse de Langeais; and she, after the manner of persons whose

sensitive taste leads them to avoid banalities, refrained from
overwhelming him with questions and compliments. She received

him with a gracious deference which could not fail to flatter a
man of more than ordinary powers, for the fact that a man rises

above the ordinary level implies that he possesses something of
that tact which makes women quick to read feeling. If the

Duchess showed any curiosity, it was by her glances; her
compliments were conveyed in her manner; there was a winning

grace displayed in her words, a subtle suggestion of a desire to
please which she of all women knew the art of manifesting. Yet

her whole conversation was but, in a manner, the body of the
letter; the postscript with the principal thought in it was still

to come. After half an hour spent in ordinary talk, in which the
words gained all their value from her tone and smiles, M. de

Montriveau was about to retire discreetly, when the Duchess
stopped him with an expressivegesture.

"I do not know, monsieur, whether these few minutes during which
I have had the pleasure of talking to you proved so sufficiently

attractive, that I may venture to ask you to call upon me; I am
afraid that it may be very selfish of me to wish to have you all

to myself. If I should be so fortunate as to find that my house
is agreeable to you, you will always find me at home in the

evening until ten o'clock."
The invitation was given with such irresistible grace, that M. de

Montriveau could not refuse to accept it. When he fell back
again among the groups of men gathered at a distance from the

women, his friends congratulated him, half laughingly, half in
earnest, on the extraordinaryreception vouchsafed him by the