The second château, that of Surcigny, was the property of an unmarried, middle-aged noble who had lived abroad until he had come unexpcetedly into the title and estates. There was no particular interest left him in life, but to complete his collection of precious stones, and to be Madame de Palcire's neighbor.

That platonic affection had risen from the ashes of the grand passion of his life, entertained for her when she was on the eve of her unhappy marriage, and he a superfluous cadet of a ducal family. Now he was a duke, and M. de Palcire persisted in his iniquitous existence.

nimbus of fair hair like a child's without a touch of meretricious yellow, a face with a child's exquisite modelling, and the tint of a white orchid. But the eyes-lustrous, dark splendors — were not the eyes of a child. The pretty follies of Madame de Roseambeau's circle had been a hotbed for precocious development, and Vivienne was only too quick a learner. She came to her aunt's side and sighed.

Madame de Palcire looked up and asked what the sigh meant. Then the girl went down on her knees, folded her hands together, those dimpled models, and looked all sorrowful innocence. "I have come to confess a sin," she said.

"One sin, indeed! the hundred and first!"

of yellow brilliance here and there alone broke the mass of the Château Roseambeau.

A card-table lit by an enormous silver candelabra stood at one end of a long saloon, at which sat a lady and gentleman playing piquet with the courteous gaiety that was once the heritage of France.

They were a handsome couple of the finest aristocratic type; both wore their hair in powder; both were in rich velvets and silks touched here and there with the sparkle of a diamond and the softness of a lace ruffle. In face, even, they were somewhat alike, though Madame de Palcire's eyes were blue, and the duke's dark hazel. The blue eyes were singularly sad and sweet with the bistre tint that suffering had left round them. Furthermore these friends were both pitiful and courteous to peasants, patient with stupidity, dependable in trouble, sane and generous in judgment, waiting with trust in the Divine guidance of the world for the resurrection of France.

The door opened, and Vivienne de Roseambeau sauntered up the room looking like a priceless Dresden figure, all in white. She was slight, small, and perfectly formed, with airy, graceful

"Mon Dieu! burn it my child!"

"But I sent it to René, and he sent it to an old school-friend, and he got it printed.”

"Le diable!" murmured the duke.

"They call these political satires Black Butterflies,' in Paris," said Vivienne; "and mine was not very stupid, for what happened? all Paris bought and laughed."

"Mon Dieu!" murmured Madame de Palcire again, turning pale.

"Well, just now I received an express from René's friend, for René, in fact, saying in cypher, Fly! your name has transpired.'”

the light, betrayed that singular family likeness that cannot be accidental.

A brief, breathless pause, and Vivienne fell on her knees before her aunt, bursting into what seemed to be a frenzied petition. Monique listened, blanched, quivering with moans, and quiet sobbings.

CHAPTER II.

PARIS, a prison, a court of injustice. Events rolled rapidly one after another, including the two days' journey that brought the austere and ambitious young Colonel St. Mandé to the happy misery of being Vivienne's mere thing." Such men, when the common fate over

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"Sir," she said vehemently, "if my aunt will sacrifice her pride, she can save an innocent man. Speak, dearest aunt!"

fooled under the charm, as bees in their own honey. To her he was an amusing new toy.

The trial had the form of justice, and the defence made a sensation, it was so ably conducted by a certain Monsieur Salvy, a young man, already a member of committee, who was said to be one of the most rising men of the day, half flattered, half feared by the irresolute disorganized Convention.

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René guessed it, for we were jealous of this handsome young forester, you see. One day he said, 'He is our cousin, Vivienne, this peasant, who is the image of Aunt Monique.' But, sir, you will keep the secret of the house!" Colonel St. Mandé thought he was doing his duty as inflexibly as usual, perhaps he deceived himself, under the fire of those dark, beseeching eyes; at any rate, he longed for the scene to end.

The duke meanwhile had grown haggard like an old man; the sudden turning to dust of an ideal is hard to bear.

"Since this is certainly not the marquis," he said with dignity, "it can little concern us who he may be. Among us we have caused those ladies distress enough, colonel; may I remind you that they have a long and early journey before them ?"

"See how quickly and how well I have learned to lie," said Monique sadly to her niece when they were once more alone.

"You have saved René's life, darling little aunt, and, oh, how clever of the boy to think of dyeing his hair, it was all like a charade!" Madame de Palcire glanced at the girl and sighed.

The first day's trial over, Vivienne was silent and abstracted on the way back to L'Abbaye, their prison. Her

danger, and began to speak words of faith and hope. Vivienne broke into the midst of them. "What eyes the man has! They are luminous, they see through one, and what will, what power; they are reeds in his hands, those brigands! I wonder what a woman he loved could do with such a man - a man indeed!"

Monique asked in surprise of whom she was speaking.

Vivienne laughed her own light, silvery, gay laugh. "Who but Monsieur Salvy!" she answered, with a look that had never been in her face before.

She was in high spirits the two next days, as though she had been going to some delightful fête. Monsieur Salvy came and conversed with his clients, and Monique thought Vivienne must be afraid of this gowned and learned orator, she was so quiet, so attentive; this gentle seriousness suited her, she was no longer a distractingly piquant feu follet, as Monsieur de Surcigny had often termed her. Certainly those steel grey eyes of Monsieur Salvy were remarkable in their penetration and play of expression. He was plainly a bourgeois of great talent.

The result of his oratory was less than

life, a slavery far worse than death. Monique fainted. Vivienne simply turned to their defeated counsel, who was in a white heat of passion, and stretched out her little hands, action and look plainly saying, "Surely you can save me! "

With a quick movement he was by her side.

"I pledge my life that this sentence shall not be carried out," he said, and their eyes met.

Vivienne smiled, and turned her head rapidly away. "Thank you, monsieur," she said; "it is singular, but I now know that I am safe, since you say it."

Two terrible days of suspense passed by. Vivienne had become a little queen in that dismal prison among the medley of political prisoners, thrown pell-mell into L'Abbaye. At this time there was no order kept men and women being together, and Vivienne had a rival. Before she appeared a certain " Cerise," known by no other name, had been imprisoned for attempting to assassinate the president, Collot d'Herbois, and this coarse, handsome, loud voiced daughter of the people had hated her from the first.

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It was there these two men saw her, with a smiling face, accepting the anarchist's florid homage.

Madame de Palcire met them half-way across the room.

"You bring us hope!" she exclaimed impulsively, "I see it."

St. Mandé bowed and stood apart, biting his moustache, and looking strangely agitated, while Monsieur Salvy appeared calm, even triumphant. replied:

He

Madame, a conditional pardon is offered."

"Ah, my child, you are saved!” She clasped Vivienne in her arms, as the girl ran up to the little group with her quick flitting movements.

"And what price do they set on my small wits?" she asked, her eyes fixed on Salvy.

"They are ambitious of seeing you one of themselves, mademoiselle. As Citoyenne Vivienne, the wife of a good Republican, they give you your liberty." But whose wife?" cried Madame de Palcire.

"It might be worth while to consider monsieur's advice, if he will give it," murmured Vivienne.

"I can but counsel consent, mademoi

der? or

Cerise, therefore, gloried in the result of the trial, while the rest gathered round their new idol with lamentations that were occasionally pathetic, coming from such sources.

The two days over, St. Mandé and Salvy arrived together at L'Abbaye.

Vivienne was seated in a window, the light of which, though it came through bars, shed a pale halo round her head.

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You will have a gallant and successful soldier for your husband."

Vivienne's cheeks showed two bright spots of pink, her eyes were cast down. "And you advise it?" she asked imperiously.

"I have no alternative. Mandé

M. St.

"So be it then," cried Vivienne, "if you choose to pay my ransom with your name, Monsieur le colonel."

St. Mandé's head reeled, he did not know what he did or said, accepting the gift of this star that seemed to have dropped into his hands from heaven.

The Black Butterfly had played its part; the very imp of mischief, it had married mademoiselle, of one of the noblest houses in France, to a Republican soldier; it had given Oliver St. Mandé one of those sudden lifts that wise men deprecate; it had robbed Monique of her darling nephew, and of her friend; it had cast the lands of Roseambeau to the harpies of democracy; it had bereaved the Duc de Surcigny of his fine collection of precious stones. These must go in bribery, and for the fine levied on Madame de Palcire. That fine! When she began to ask how it was to be paid, no one would tell her, but she knew it had not come out of her own moderate income.

CHAPTER III.

She had never confessed that René and Paul were one and the same, and St. Mandé was learning the strength of that most terrible of all the passions, jealousy. Vivienne had amused herself since her marriage by sitting to the famous Monsieur David for her portrait. Tancred Salvy was a friend of the painter's, and obtained leave to relieve the tedium of the sittings by making a third at them. Vivienne had not seen fit to say anything of these brilliant conversations to Oliver; he forgot Salvy's existence when he was out of sight, and continued to be preyed upon by the shadow of a shade, until his whole life was saturated with bitterness.

Two months after his marriage he was appointed to one of the most important military commands in Paris, and etiquette required that he should give a banquet in honor of his promotion. On the day of this banquet he was hurrying homewards, when he came across Monsieur David.

"Aha, a thousand congratulations," cried the painter, who had no liking for St. Mandé. "But hasten your steps, colonel, we have had a surprise to-day, our charming little cousin from the provinces. He finds his way to my studio- what a happy meeting - two children in their joy. Madame cries, It is Paul — little Paul who has shared the rocking-horse with me, and whose head I have knocked with a bâton of sucre-de-pomme!' Ah, there is nothing like our childhood's friends. But Paris is bad for the handsome forester, send him away, colonel; it is bad, I say, and these sentimental memories - bah!'

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"A proud fool," he muttered, as St. Mandé, with scarcely intelligible acknowledgments, hurried on. A hideous grip was on his heart. From the moment he had first seen Vivienne he had become one no longer in his own power, and love had proved itself suffering.