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34 sure, but none the less violently, in the direction of the vicomte, whose sinister face and supple form seemed to her those of a Antinous, whose insolent and affected manners were in her estimation the ideal of dignity and high-breeding, and whose careless compliments, flung at her from time to time merely because Gaston de Montarnaud knew no other mode of addressing a good-looking young woman, stood for so many avowals of love.

When, therefore, Mademoiselle Salerne discovered, in some occult fashion of her own, that the object of her idol's present visit to Montarnaud was to woo her pupil for his wife, and was informed that she as gouvernante to Mademoiselle de Rochenbois would on the morrow accompany her to Paris, the state of mingled jealousy, pleasure, doubt, and agitation taking possession of her mind was something as terrific as the proverbial tempest in a teapot, and quite sufficient to banish slumber from the beady black eyes of the victim, even had she not found the night too short to furbish up her dilapidated wardrobe, and prepare for her journey.

Hence it came, that, as Gaston quietly left the château, Adèle Salerne first peeped out of her window after his retreating figure, and then, moved by some vague impulse of jealousy and suspicion, seized a mantle, and, flinging it round her head and shoulders, ran swiftly through the corridor and down the stairs in pursuit, or at least in espial, of the nocturnal rambler. Now, it so happened that the Abbé Despard, although not in love, was as wakeful and as dis-