d suddenly, and then I could not mistake the beautiful
countenance that had so struck me on that morning. But, sad to say, even
these few hours had made great ravages: sorrow, anxiety, and misery are
the most zealous accessories of age. She really looked years older: this
might have been partly the effect of the lurid, flickering light, and
the disorder of her dress; but sure I am that no one could have
recognized the haughty, dignified, imposing woman, who but a few hours
since had swept almost contemptuously through the streets.

"You are come to accuse me," she exclaimed, falling with both her hands
on the pavement, and striking it with violence; "now you come to accuse
me. It is like a Christian," she continued, with increased bitterness in
her voice and vehemence in her action. And then she sobbed violently,
and looked into my face with a piteous expression.

The police prevented the necessity of my reply, for one of the men
seized her at once by the arm, and dragged her up rudely, desiring her
to stand. And she did stand there--a picture of utter prostration,
mental and physical, to have melted any heart, save the stony, arid ones
of those men who were with me. Stand alone she could not, but she leaned
against the wall, and her head fell on her shoulder, her fingers were
intertwined together, and she moved them about with a kind of galvanic
agitation. All the anger and impetuosity of her character had passed
away: she was no longer the ideal of ruined greatness, but the simple,
broken-hearted woman. Violence in a woman is at all times so painful to
witness, even in moments of extreme sorrow, that it rather offends than
interests.

"You know this woman?" said the abrupt, uncouth examiner, in a voice
which echoed to the vaulted roof.

I scarcely dared look at her; but I felt that those large black eyes
were fixed supplicatingly upon me, and I, too, trembled.

The question was repeated in the same harsh manner, and this time I
nodded in the affirmative.

"She sold you this piece of lace?" was the next question.

He took the lace of exquisite texture, and unrolled it so roughly that
it tore in his hand. M. Narelli had left us for some minutes, or this
miserable subordinate would not have dared to behave in so rude a
manner; but I scarcely thought it worth while to notice it,--or rather,
I scarcely did notice it at the time, my attention was so absorbed by
the poor girl, whose happiness, whose every prospect, de