he stranger, after they were seated.
"Your eyes look inquiringly at me. I could have remained silent, and
never more appeared to your vision; but I owe you an explanation, and
therefore I ventured to appear to you in my old form, knowing that I
run the risk of your cursing me. But you once told me: _The religion of
my fathers commands me to love him, and then he must be more unhappy
than I._ Believe that, my friend, and listen to my vindication.

"I must begin far back, in order to make my story quite clear. I was
born in Alexandria, of Christian parents. My father was the French
consul there, and was the younger son of a famous old French family.
From my tenth year up, I was under the care of my uncle, in France, and
left my fatherland some years after the breaking out of the Revolution,
with my uncle, who no longer felt safe in the land of his ancestors, in
order to find a refuge with my parents across the sea. We landed in
Alexandria, hopeful of finding in my parents' home that quiet and peace
that no longer obtained in France. The outside storms of this excitable
period had not, it is true, extended to this point, but from an
unexpected quarter came the blow that crushed our family to the ground.
My brother, a young man full of promise, and private secretary to my
father, had but recently married the daughter of a Florentine nobleman
who lived in my father's neighborhood. Two days before our arrival, my
brother's bride disappeared; and neither our family, nor yet her
father, could discover the slightest trace of her. We finally came to
the conclusion that she had ventured too far away for a walk, and had
fallen into the hands of brigands. This belief would have been a
consolation to my brother, in comparison with the truth that was only
too soon made known to us. The faithless woman had eloped with a young
Neapolitan, whom she had been in the habit of meeting at her father's
house. My brother, terribly excited by this act, used his utmost
endeavors to bring the guilty one to account; but in vain. His attempts
in this direction, which had aroused attention in Florence and Naples,
only served to bring down misfortune on us all. The Florentine nobleman
returned to his country under the pretext of assisting my brother, but
with the real design of destroying us all. He put an end to all the
investigations instituted by my brother in Florence, and used his
influence so effectually that my father and brother fell under the