Almost a week had elapsed since the last visit of Mme. Lorraine to Eliot Van Zandt.

During that time he had been very ill from the fever brought on by his agitation at her indiscreet announcement of the death of the girl in whom he had been so warmly interested.

All Mima's skill and care had been required to ward off a fatal consequence to this relapse, and the woman had sternly forbidden any more calls from her mistress during this critical state. Mme. Lorraine was so frightened that she was very obedient to the mandate; but now the embargo had been removed, and she was free to visit the fascinating patient.

He was better. Indeed, he was rapidly convalescing, owing to Mima's good nursing, aided by his youth and a strong constitution.

So, on this lovely April morning, madame had made herself beautiful by every device of art at her command, and hurried through the secret door to visit the wounded captive whom she held in durance vile.

Pale and wan, but exceedingly handsome still, Eliot Van Zandt lay upon a velvet lounge, his fair Saxon beauty thrown into strong relief by the dressing-gown of dark-blue silk that madame's care had supplied.

At the entrance of the superbly dressed and handsome woman, his dark brows met with a heavy frown.

"I gave orders, Madame Lorraine, that you should not be admitted again!" he exclaimed, with the frank petulance of convalescence.

Madame gave her graceful head an airy toss.

"No one can debar me from the privilege of entering any room in my own house," she replied, coolly.

"Your own house?" starting.

"Precisely," with a maddening smile; and for at least two minutes a dead silence reigned in the room that, with its swinging-lamp burning brightly, presented the appearance of night, although it was midday outside.

Then he exclaimed, angrily:

"I had already become convinced that there was something mysterious in my sojourn here. I have found out that I am in an underground apartment from which there is no apparent egress. I know that no living soul but yourself and your servant has been near me since I was ill. Am I, then, your prisoner?"

Smilingly, she replied:

"Do not call it by so harsh a word. It is true that you are in my house, hidden in an underground apartment; but it was for your own good that I brought you here. You had fatally wounded Remond, and the authorities were after you. I—I love you," falteringly. "I could not give you up to justice. So you are here—a prisoner, if you will, but a beloved and well cared-for one."

"Yes, I have received skillful care and attention from your servant. I thank you," very stiffly; "but now I am well, I desire to go."

"I am suspected of harboring you. My house is watched by officers of the law. Should you go out, you would be instantly arrested. Mon Dieu! that must not be!"

She looked at him with tender, pleading eyes.

He answered, curtly:

"If I have hurt Remond, I am willing to answer to the law for my crime committed in the defense of the weak and the helpless. I have no wish to shirk my punishment. You understand me now, and you will let me go. I demand my release!"

Clasping her jeweled hands together in pretended despair, she exclaimed:

"But, good Heaven! mon ami, I can not let you be so reckless. Think a moment what will happen if they take you into custody. If the man dies, you may be—hung!"

"I take all the risk; only show me the way out of my hated prison!" he exclaimed, impatiently; and, with sudden passion, Mme. Lorraine answered, boldly:

"Then, by Heaven, I will not! There is but one way by which you can ever leave this room, whose existence is known to no human being but Mima, myself, and you."

She saw him grow deathly pale to the roots of his hair, as he asked, with pretended coolness:

"And that way, my darling jailer?"

With something like a blush struggling through the cosmetics that covered her face, she replied firmly, although in a low voice:

"As my husband."

There was an awkward silence; the man was blushing for her; the dark-red flush went up to the roots of his hair; she saw it, and bit her lips. At last he said, with cool disdain:

"You have already a husband in an insane asylum."

She interrupted, eagerly:

"No, no—not my husband. I am free—that is, I was divorced by law from him years ago."

She came nearer; she flung herself, with a rustle of silk and heavy waft of patchouli, down by his side on the sofa. Looking up into his face with burning eyes, she exclaimed, wildly:

"Do not look so coldly and scornfully upon me! Since you came to New Orleans, you have changed all my life. I never loved before. I married Monsieur Lorraine for wealth and position, without a single heart-throb for the man. But you I love, you I have sworn to win. What is there unreasonable about it, that your eyes flash so proudly? You are handsome, it is true, but I also am beautiful. You are gifted, but you are poor, while I am rolling in wealth. I can take you from your drudging life and make your existence a dream of luxury and ease. That is generous, is it not? But you have bewitched me; you have changed all my nature; you have taught me to love."

"I never tried to do so," he replied, with unmoved coldness.

"Cold-hearted Yankee! have you no feeling, no pity?" she demanded, reproachfully. "Look at me fairly," plucking impatiently at his sleeve. "Am I not fair enough to teach you to love me?"

"No," he answered, curtly, shrinking from her touch, but looking straight into her impassioned eyes with cold, unmoved gray orbs.

"Perhaps you already love some one else?" she burst forth, jealously.

"No," in a cold, incisive voice.

A low laugh of triumph broke from her, and she exclaimed:

"Then I will not give you up. You shall be my husband."

He gave her an angry stare, but she continued, unheeding:

"To-night I leave New Orleans with my servant Mima. I have my reasons for this step. N'importe; they concern not you. I have made up my mind to be your wife, to bear your name, to go home with you to Boston. If you say the word, a priest shall be brought within the hour to make us one. Then we can escape together to-night and fly this fatal city which now holds imminent danger for you. Do you consent?"

He looked with his cold, disconcerting gaze full into her eyes.

"What if I refuse?" he queried.

"You are a Yankee all over—you answer one question with another," she said, with a faint, mirthless laugh. "But my alternative is so bitter I shrink from naming it. Tell me, are you going to make me your loving wife?"

"I would die first!" he responded, with passionate emphasis.

She looked up at him, pale with wrath and mortification, and hissed, angrily:

"You have chosen well, for it will come to that—to—to death!"

"You would murder me?" he exclaimed, with a start; and she answered, defiantly:

"If you can not be mine, no one else shall ever have your love or your name. If you persist in refusing my generous offer, I shall go away from here with Mima to-night; but I shall leave you in this cellar to starve and to die, and to molder into dust until the story of your mysterious disappearance that night has been forgotten of men."

"You could not be so inhuman!" he uttered, with paling lips.

"I can, and I will," laughing mockingly. "Take your choice now, monsieur—my time is limited. Shall it be love—or—death?"

With ineffable scorn, although his handsome features had waned to a marble pallor, he replied, in a voice of proud disdain:

"Such love—the love of a guilty, wicked woman like you, Madame Lorraine—leaves one no choice but death!"