He thought of the meek and saddened expression of her face, as he had seen it in these last hurried interviews, and it seemed to him she had never appeared so lovely.

He remembered with a shudder what Madame Guirlande had said about the auction-stand.

He was familiar with such scenes, for he had seen women offered for sale, and had himself bid for them in competition with rude, indecent crowds.

It was revolting to his soul to associate the image of Rosa with such base surroundings; but it seemed as if some fiend persisted in holding the painful picture before him.

He seemed to see her graceful figure gazed at by a brutal crowd, while the auctioneer assured them that she was warranted to be an entirely new and perfectly sound article,--a moss rosebud from a private royal garden,--a diamond fit for a king's crown.