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86 Francesca could only utter her thanks—it had been ungracious to urge her refusal.

"Here you cannot remain," resumed the Cardinal; "but Madame de Soissons is coming to see you, in the hope that for the present you will consider her house your home."

"O no!" cried Francesca, hastily.

The Cardinal looked surprised. "You can scarcely purpose a longer stay under the roof of so young a master? But perhaps"—and this rose from a sudden and secret suspicion—"the Duc de Mercœur may have proposed some more agreeable place?"

"I have not," answered Francesca, quite unconscious of the latent surmise, "seen the Duc since" And she stopped with uncontrollable emotion.

The Cardinal paused too, for his better feelings reproved his momentary injustice. Moreover, he knew the Comtesse too well not to conjecture that many a slight and unkindness might have wounded both the pride and the affection of her former friend. Still, this was an evil beyond his remedy. The Signora de Carrara must bear it as well as she could, and her situation about the Queen would soon place her in perfect independence; while he had the satisfaction of having done all