CHAPTER V.HOUSEHOLD TREASON.
The Provencal took the letter from his son's hand, and looked at him with an approbation half-complacent, half-ironical.

"Mon fils!" said he, patting the boy's head gently, "why should we not be friends?
We want each other; we have the strong world to fight against." "Not if you are master of this place." "Well answered,--no; then we shall have the strong world on our side, and shall have only rogues and the poor to make war upon." Then, with a quiet gesture, he dismissed his son, and gazed slowly on the letter.
His pulse, which was usually low, quickened, and his lips were tightly compressed; he shrank from the contents with a jealous pang; as a light quivers strugglingly in a noxious vault, love descended into that hideous breast, gleamed upon dreary horrors, and warred with the noxious atmosphere: but it shone still.

To this dangerous man, every art that gives power to the household traitor was familiar: he had no fear that the violated seals should betray the fraud which gave the contents to the eye that, at length, steadily fell upon the following lines:-- DEAREST, AND EVER DEAREST,--Where art thou at this moment?
What are thy thoughts,--are they upon me?
I write this at the dead of night.

I picture you to myself as my hand glides over the paper.

I think I see you, as you look on these words, and envy them the gaze of those dark eyes.