I stood before her, in one of the loftily-ceiled and magnificent apartments of that princely dwelling, her father's ducal palace; and the flush of the summer noon-day's sun streamed through a painted casement full upon the outline of her faultless head and form, edging with a dazzling brightness the golden tresses of her hair, the curve of her delicate neck and shoulders, and the folds of her white brocade, that fell so gracefully around her. All conscious that we breathed the same atmosphere again, and that I was near her, I approached with averted eye, until I might have touched her, and then our glances met—but oh how timidly and sorrowfully! Yet I gazed full upon her, for her soft blue eyes were the bright stars in which, with all the fond astrology of love, I strove to read my future destiny.

But though their gentleness remained, her bearing was changed. It was no longer the timid diffidence, which was characteristic of the winning Nicola, that I read in them now; but the clear and full yet chaste expression of a woman of undoubted rank, and of one who had been long accustomed to her high position; and pausing, I bowed low, with a humility that was half mockery, while with a sigh of bitterness and sorrow, I remembered that I stood before my lost love, the daughter of Duke Charles IV.—Mademoiselle Marie Louise, of Lorraine and Bar-le-Duc, she whom I believed to have made my honest passion the plaything of an hour.

'M. Blane,' said she, in a voice that seemed piercing, for it stirred my very soul, though it seemed to be rendered tremulous by her emotions; 'why do you not come nearer, and give me your hand?'

'My hand—mademoiselle?'

'Your hand—as of old.'

'Because we are no longer what we—were.'

'My dear M. Arthur,' said she, trembling excessively as she clasped my hand within her own; 'what is the meaning of all this? does not the time seem long—very long—since we have spoken?'

'Yet we parted last night, mademoiselle,' said I, with affected carelessness. She looked at me earnestly and said—

'Do not speak so unkindly to me, Arthur; but confess that the time has seemed long to you.'

'An eternity!' I exclaimed, as her heart throbbed beneath my hand, which she pressed against her side; 'but alas, mademoiselle—'