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Rh day, and how they had assembled again, and how their leaders had escaped.

"Where is the Lady Christine?" asked Edmond of the Lady de Courtenai.

"My niece," replied the lady, "is within there, indisposed as she says: her capricious fits have returned again, and no one can make anything of her; perhaps you may be able to enliven her, or perhaps she is sad, because the Marshal is not yet come."

Edward passed into the adjoining room, the door of which stood open, it was lighted up, and there, on a sofa with tearfraught eyes sat the Lady Christine; her lute lay negligently on her arm, as if she would have played, but she was so deeply plunged in thought, that she started up terrified, when Edmond greeted her and inquired after her health. "Lady, dearest," he exclaimed, "what is the matter with you? I have never yet seen you thus!"

"Not thus?" said Christine, looking wildly, and with a smile of bitterness, "and