, no longer recognizing the woman whom he had wedded, left her to
live on a little property at Strasbourg, until the time when it should
please God to remove her to adorn Paradise. She was one of those
virtuous women who, for want of other occupation, would weary the life
out of an angel with complainings, who pray till (if their prayers are
heard in heaven) they must exhaust the patience of the Almighty, and say
everything that is bad of their husbands in dovelike murmurs over a game
of boston with their neighbors. When Aquilina learned all these troubles
she clung still more affectionately to Castanier, and made him so happy,
varying with woman's ingenuity the pleasures with which she filled his
life, that all unwittingly she was the cause of the cashier's downfall.

Like many women who seem by nature destined to sound all the depths of
love, Mme. de la Garde was disinterested. She asked neither for gold
nor for jewelry, gave no thought to the future, lived entirely for the
present and for the pleasures of the present. She accepted expensive
ornaments and dresses, the carriage so eagerly coveted by women of
her class, as one harmony the more in the picture of life. There was
absolutely no vanity in her desire not to appear at a better advantage
but to look the fairer, and moreover, no woman could live without
luxuries more cheerfully. When a man of generous nature (and military
men are mostly of this stamp) meets with such a woman, he feels a sort
of exasperation at finding himself her debtor in generosity. He feels
that he could stop a mail coach to obtain money for her if he has not
sufficient for her whims. He will commit a crime if so he may be great
and noble in the eyes of some woman or of his special public; such
is the nature of the man. Such a lover is like a gambler who would be
dishonored in his own eyes if he did not repay the sum he borrowed from
a waiter in a gaming-house; but will shrink from no crime, will leave
his wife and children without a penny, and rob and murder, if so he
may come to the gaming-table with a full purse, and his honor remain
untarnished among the frequenters of that fatal abode. So it was with
Castanier.

He had begun by installing Aquiline is a modest fourth-floor dwelling,
the furniture being of the simplest kind. But when he saw the girl's
beauty and great qualities, when he had known inexpressible and
unlooked-for happiness with her, he began to dote upon her; and longed
to a