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140 so tightly clasped upon her knee. Three long minutes ticked themselves away upon the watch hanging at the head of the bed; and Francois, unable to endure the utter silence, threw himself back into his former position, looked keenly at the statuesque figure beside him, and mockingly asked,—

"What! not gone yet, mademoiselle?"

"You are wrong and cruel to treat me so, Francois!" exclaimed Molly, in a voice sharpened by pain and the sense of wrong: "I have not showed myself so weak or so treacherous as you seem to wish to think me."

"It is needless to remind me of my obligations to you, mademoiselle. I am crushed beneath their weight already, and only wish there were a possible way of repaying them."

"And you think I am taunting you with your obligations, as you call them?" exclaimed Molly in a tone perilously near contempt: "how little you know me, and I thought we were so well acquainted! A traitor, a liar, and mean enough to recall my own services to one willing to forget them! Can I do any thing for you before going down stairs?"

"To call your father?"

Molly turned away with no reply but a look of indignant reproach; and Francois caught her dress.

"Stay, Marie! You can do something for me."

"What is it? Do not hold my dress, please."

"You can forgive me. I have been cruel and unjust; I have tortured you who are so kind and patient with me; I have been unmanly, childish, I know not