evered man who finds a strange
flower in one of his sick dreams.

After a minute or two I suddenly recollected myself, and throwing the
blossom on the ground, I crushed it savagely beneath my heel--the
penetrating odor rose from its slain petals as though a vessel of
incense had been emptied at my feet. There was a nauseating influence
in it; where had I inhaled that subtle perfume last? I
remembered--Guido Ferrari had worn one of those flowers in his coat at
my banquet--it had been still in his buttonhole when I killed him!

I strode onward and homeward; the streets were full of mirth and music,
but I heeded none of it. I felt, rather than saw, the quiet sky bending
above me dotted with its countless millions of luminous worlds; I was
faintly conscious of the soft plash of murmuring waves mingling with
the dulcet chords of deftly played mandolins echoing from somewhere
down by the shore; but my soul was, as it were, benumbed--my mind,
always on the alert, was for once utterly tired out--my very limbs
ached, and when I at last flung myself on my bed, exhausted, my eyes
closed instantly, and I slept the heavy, motionless sleep of a man
weary unto death.

CHAPTER XXXII.

"Tout le monde vient a celui qui sait attendre." So wrote the great
Napoleon. The virtue of the aphorism consists in the little words 'qui
sait'. All the world comes to him who KNOWS HOW to wait, _I_ knew this,
and I had waited, and my world--a world of vengeance--came to me at
last.

The slow-revolving wheel of Time brought me to the day before my
strange wedding--the eve of my remarriage with my own wife! All the
preparations were made--nothing was left undone that could add to the
splendor of the occasion. For though the nuptial ceremony was to be
somewhat quiet and private in character, and the marriage breakfast was
to include only a few of our more intimate acquaintances, the
proceedings were by no means to terminate tamely. The romance of these
remarkable espousals was not to find its conclusion in bathos. No; the
bloom and aroma of the interesting event were to be enjoyed in the
evening, when a grand supper and ball, given by me, the happy and
much-to-be-envied bridegroom, was to take place in the hotel which I
had made my residence for so long. No expense was spared for this, the
last entertainment offered by me in my brilliant career as a successful
Count Cesare Oliva. After it, the dark curtain would fall on the
played-out drama,