ers
believed in each other and in every one about them, and that even the
legacy of the defunct aunt had not been too great a strain on their
faith in human nature.

His first glance at the Comte Louis du Trayas showed Garnett that, by
some marvel of fitness, Hermione had happened upon a kindred nature. If
the young man's long mild features and short-sighted glance revealed no
special force of character, they showed a benevolence and simplicity as
incorruptible as her own, and declared that their possessor, whatever
his failings, would never imperil the illusions she had so miraculously
preserved. The fact that the girl took her good fortune naturally, and
did not regard herself as suddenly snatched from the jaws of death,
added poignancy to the situation; for if she missed this way of escape,
and was thrown back on her former life, the day of discovery could not
be long deferred. It made Garnett shiver to think of her growing old
between her mother and Schenkelderff, or such successors of the Baron's
as might probably attend on Mrs. Newell's waning fortunes; for it was
clear to him that the Baron marked the first stage in his friend's
decline. When Garnett took leave that evening he had promised Mrs.
Newell that he would try to find her husband.

V

IF Mr. Newell read in the papers the announcement of his daughter's
marriage it did not cause him to lift the veil of seclusion in which
his wife represented him as shrouded.

A round of the American banks in Paris failed to give Garnett his
address, and it was only in chance talk with one of the young
secretaries of the Embassy that he was put on Mr. Newell's track. The
secretary's father, it appeared, had known the Newells some twenty
years earlier. He had had business relations with Mr. Newell, who was
then a man of property, with factories or something of the kind, the
narrator thought, somewhere in Western New York. There had been at this
period, for Mrs. Newell, a phase of large hospitality and showy
carriages in Washington and at Narragansett. Then her husband had had
reverses, had lost heavily in Wall Street, and had finally drifted
abroad and been lost to sight. The young man did not know at what point
in his financial decline Mr. Newell had parted company with his wife
and daughter; "though you may bet your hat," he philosophically
concluded, "that the old girl hung on as long as there were any
pickings." He did not himself know Mr. Newell's address, but op