“Show me to Miss Brandon’s room,” he said to the servant.

She sat, as she always did when left alone in the house, in the little boudoir, where Daniel had already once been carried by her.  Dressed in a long dressing-wrapper of pale-blue cashmere, her hair scarcely taken up at all, she was reading, reclining on a sofa.

As the door opened, she raised herself carelessly a little, and, without turning around, asked,—­

“Who is that?”

But, when the servant announced the name of M. Champcey, she rose with a bound, almost terrified, dropping the book which she had in her hand.

“You!” she murmured as soon as the servant had left.  “Here, and of your own accord?”

Firmly resolved this time to remain master of his sensations, Daniel had stopped in the middle of the room, as stiff as a statue.

“Don’t you know, madam, what brings me here?  All your combinations have succeeded admirably; you triumph, and we surrender.”

She looked at him in perfect amazement, stammering—­

“I do not understand you.  I do not know what you mean.”

He shrugged his shoulders, and continued in an icy tone,—­

“Do me the honor to think that I am not altogether a fool.  I have seen the letter which you have sent to the minister, signed with my name.  I have held that masterpiece of forgery in my hand and know now how you free yourself of my presence!”

Miss Brandon interrupted him with an angry gesture,—­

“Then it is really so!  He has done it; he has dared do it!”

“Who is this he?  M. Thomas Elgin, no doubt?”

“No, not he; another man.”

“Name him!”

She hesitated, hung her head, and then said with a great effort,—­

“I knew they wished to separate us; and, without knowing precisely what means they would employ, I suspected them.  And, when I came to you the other day, I wanted to say to you, ‘Have a care!’ and you, M. Champcey, you drove me from you.”

He looked upon her with such an ironical smile that she broke off, and cried,—­

“Ah, he does not believe me!  Tell me that you do not believe me!”

He bowed ceremoniously, and replied in his gravest manner,—­

“I believe, Miss Brandon, that you desire to become Countess Ville-Handry; and you clear everything out of your path that can hinder you in your plans.”

She was about to answer; but he did not give her time, and continued,—­

“Mark, I pray, that I make no charges.  Come, let us play openly.  You are too sensible and too practical to hate us—­Miss Henrietta and myself—­from gratuitous and purely platonic motives.  You hate us because we are in your way.  How are we in your way?  Tell me; and, if you will promise to help us, we—­Henrietta and I—­pledge ourselves not to stand in your way.”

Miss Brandon looked as if she could not trust her ears.