"'In the garden of the Luxembourg, near the white marble lions, at noon to-morrow; and failing that, on the next day at the same hour.'
"Exulting in his diplomacy, Boisguiller hurried back to me, relinquished his disguise and resumed his uniform, talking the while with noisy admiration of the beauty and high spirit of Mademoiselle du Platel. Spirit? mon Dieu! he little knew how, by all the appliances of domestic and parental tyranny it had been crushed and broken.
"With a soul inspired by tenderness and anxiety, I repaired at the appointed hour to the place of rendezvous—the avenue to the garden nursery, containing specimens of every kind of fruit then cultivated in the provinces of France; and there I leaned, so great was my emotion, against the base of one of the white marble lions, and my heart fluttered at the sight of every female figure. But the clocks of Paris struck the hour in vain; it passed away; another hour succeeded, and there came no Isabelle.
"Had they discovered our assignation, those venal parents? Was she ill—what had happened?
"It was, however, merely a visit of that provoking Monsieur d'Escombas which interfered with her arrangements, as he insisted on escorting her, wherever she was going. But next day, when I sought the same place and pressed her to my breast, we retired to a secluded part of the garden, where we could converse and freely deplore the hard destiny which was about to separate us for ever.
"Grand Dieu! Monsieur Gauntlet, why should I weary you with all this, and what interest can it possibly have for you?" exclaimed the Frenchman, suddenly interrupting himself; but I pressed him to continue, for the modulated tones of his voice, a certain pathos in it, and his sorrowful earnestness, gave his story an interest which cannot be imparted to it here.
"I implored Isabelle to elope with me; but she trembled, closed her eyes, and whispered, in a broken voice, that she dared not.
"'You are but sixteen, Isabelle, and they would consign you to a man of sixty—a sweet young girl like you surrendered to the cold arms of one whose heart is but the dregs and lees of a life spent in Paris! Oh, it is piteous!'
"'And bitterly they taunt me——'
"'Who taunt you?'