d lighting his meerschaum.

"By whom was that notice inserted?"

"By M. de Baillu, the agent and banker of Mr. Minge of Boston, who was
warmly and sincerely attached to your _protegee_, and earnestly
endeavored to marry her. When she left Palermo, Mr. Minge came to this
city and solicited my aid in discovering her retreat."

"Pardon me, but why did he apply to you?"

"Simply because he knew that I was an old acquaintance, and he had
seen me with her, when she first came from America."

"How did you ascertain her presence in Paris?"

"Accidentally; one night, at the opera, whither she accompanied
Professor V----, I recognized her, and of course made myself known.
To what shall I ascribe the honor of this rigid cross-questioning?"

"To reasons which I shall very freely give you. But first, permit me
to beg that you will resume your narrative at the point where I
interrupted you. I wish to learn all that can be told concerning Mr.
Minge."

"He was an elderly man of ordinary appearance, but extraordinary
fortune, and seemed completely fascinated by Salome's beauty. He
offered a large reward to the police for any clew that would enable
him to discover her, and finally found the physician whom she had
consulted with reference to some disease of the throat, which
occasioned the loss of her voice. He had prescribed for her several
times, but knew nothing of her lodging-place, as she always called at
his office; and finally, without assigning any reason, her visits
ceased. Mr. Minge redoubled his exertions, and at last found her in
one of the hospitals connected with a convent. The Sisters of Charity
informed him that one bleak day when the rain was falling drearily,
they chanced to see a woman stagger and drop on the pavement before
their door, and, hurrying to her assistance, discovered that she had
swooned from exhaustion. A bundle of unfinished needlework was hidden
under her shawl, and they soon ascertained that she was delirious from
some low typhus fever that had utterly prostrated her. For several
weeks she was dangerously ill, and was just able to sit up when Mr.
Minge discovered her. He told me that it was distressing and painful
beyond expression to witness her humiliation, her wounded pride, her
defiant rejection of his renewed offer of marriage. One day he took
his sister Constance and a minister of the gospel to the hospital, and
implored Salome to become his wife, then and there. He said she wept
bitterl