venience of those
inconsolable mourners who make the cemetery their usual resort. He
arranged him comfortably, encompassed him with a protecting glance,
sympathized with him in his infirmity, and, the conversation following a
course very natural in such a place, they talked of their health, of the
approach of old age. One was dropsical, the other subject to rushes of
blood to the head. Both were taking the Jenkins Pearls,--a dangerous
remedy, witness Mora's sudden taking off.

"Poor duke!" said Jansoulet.

"A great loss to the country," rejoined the banker, in a grief-stricken
tone.

Whereupon the Nabob ingenuously exclaimed:

"To me, above all others to me, for if he had lived--Ah! you have all
the luck, you have all the luck! And then, you know, you are so strong,
so very strong," he added, fearing that he had wounded him.

The baron looked at him and winked, so drolly that his little black
lashes disappeared in his yellow flesh.

"No," he said, "I'm not the strong one. It's Marie!"

"Marie?"

"Yes, the baroness. At the time of her baptism she dropped her old name,
Yumina, for Marie. She's a real woman. She knows more about the bank
than I do, and about Paris and business generally. She manages
everything in the concern."

"You are very fortunate," sighed Jansoulet.

His melancholy was most eloquent touching Mademoiselle Afchin's
deficiencies. After a pause the baron continued:

"Marie has a bitter grudge against you, you know. She won't like it when
she knows that we have been talking together."

He contracted his heavy eyebrows as if he regretted the reconciliation
at the thought of the conjugal scene it would bring upon him.

"But I have never done anything to her," stammered Jansoulet.

"Ah! but you haven't been very polite to her, you know. Think of the
insult put upon her at the time of our wedding-call. Your wife sending
word to us that she didn't receive former slaves! As if our friendship
should not have been stronger than any prejudice. Women don't forget
such things."

"But I had nothing to do with it, old fellow. You know how proud those
Afchins are."

He was not proud, poor man. His expression was so piteous, so imploring
at sight of his friend's frowning brow, that the baron took pity on him.
The cemetery had a decidedly softening effect on the baron!

"Listen, Bernard, there's only one thing that will do any good. If you
wish that we should be friends as we used to be, that these h