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28 "I believe you do but play with poor me," she whispered.

"I swear on my soul I am in earnest. I love you, Lucette, I"

"Hush, not now, not now;" and she snatched her hand quickly from him as if in great confusion and picked up her spinning wheel. "I shall count the minutes till the sun sets—now, Jacques," she cried with a bright laughing smile, and passed into the house.

"Blind kittens are we, Master Rat?" she said to herself as she went to her apartment. "If I do not know all you have to tell me of this villainy against Gabrielle before the dusk is dark, may I never know a rogue when I see one." And then her fears on Gabrielle's account having been excited, her quick wits busied themselves with all manner of fanciful conjectures as to what the vaguely shadowed danger could be; and her impatience could scarce be held in check until the time arrived for her meeting with Dauban.

Meanwhile the interview between Gabrielle and her uncle had taken place and he had brought her news which for the moment had both deeply interested and greatly excited her.

The Baron de Proballe was a man whose aim in life had been to fill to the brim the cup of self-indulgent pleasures. Handsome, rich, unscrupulous and talented, he was endowed with most of the vices except cowardice, and while yet a young man he had soon made himself a reputation as a profligate among profligates until his excesses had ruined him. His fortune declined as his reputation grew, and for some years he had been driven to live upon his wits, which meant trading upon his skill as a gambler until a particularly disgraceful scandal had driven him from Paris, bankrupt in pocket and much broken in health, to seek refuge with his young kinswoman at Morvaix.