glad the young couple had avoided the calamity they were in
dread of, although I am not sure that I had a right to wish that
they should escape the full consequences of their fault.

My feelings were abruptly changed when, on paying a flying visit to
Madame de Kries a few months later, I heard the sequel of the
story, told to me in the strictest confidence, and in violation, I
fear, of the old lady's pledge of secrecy. (She was a sad gossip, a
failing with which I have no sympathy.) Sir R. E. did not, in fact,
die on the date reported. He fell into a collapse, mistaken for
death by those about him, and even by his medical attendant; after
lying in this state for twenty-four hours he revived and lived
nearly a week longer. A second letter, apprising Mrs F. of this
fact, and announcing the correct date of his death as June 12th,
reached her at Baden on the 28th. By this time she was married, but
the validity of her new union (solemnized on the 23rd) did not
appear to be affected. Nothing more was done, and the boy was born,
as I have stated, early in July. Only after this event, which
naturally engrossed the parents' attention, did the mistake into
which they had fallen come to be discovered. As a matter of form,
and to avoid doubts in the future, Captain F. wrote for the
official certificate of Sir R.'s death. When it came, it came as a
thunderbolt. Sir R. had been residing in a small Russian town near
the frontier; he was interested, I understood, in some business
there. The servant to whom I have referred was an uneducated man
and could not write; he had picked up a little French but spoke no
Russian. Wishing to inform Mrs F. of what had occurred, he had
recourse to a professional letter-writer, who perhaps knew as
little French, or almost as little, as himself, and was entirely
ignorant of English. The servant gave the dates I have set
down--June 6th in the first letter, the 12th in the second. The
letter-writer put them down; and Mrs F. read and immediately
accepted them. It did not cross her mind or Captain F.'s that the
dates used were the ordinary Russian dates--were in fact 'Old
Style,' and consequently twelve days behind the reckoning of
Germany or of England. They might have been put on inquiry by the
long interval between the date of the