girl's
nature had asserted their command. Her promise had been given to one
man--it could not be recalled. Thought itself of any other man must be
banished. On her hearth lay ashes and tinder--the last remains of every
treasured note from Graham Vane; of the hoarded newspaper extracts that
contained his name; of the dry treatise he had published, and which had
made the lovely romance-writer first desire "to know something about
politics." Ay, if the treatise had been upon fox-hunting, she would have
desired "to know something about" that! Above all, yet distinguishable
from the rest--as the sparks still upon stem and leaf here and there
faintly glowed and twinkled--the withered flowers which recorded that
happy hour in the arbour, and the walks of the forsaken garden--the hour
in which she had so blissfully pledged herself to renounce that career
in art wherein fame would have been secured, but which would not have
united Fame with Love--in dreams evermore over now.

BOOK X.

CHAPTER I.

Graham Vane had heard nothing for months from M. Renard, when one
morning he received the letter I translate:

"MONSIEUR,--I am happy to inform you that I have at last obtained one
piece of information which may lead to a more important discovery. When
we parted after our fruitless research in Vienna, we had both concurred
in the persuasion that, for some reason known only to the two ladies
themselves, Madame Marigny and Madame Duval had exchanged names--that
it was Madame Marigny who had deceased in the name of Madame Duval, and
Madame Duval who had survived in that of Marigny.

"It was clear to me that the beau Monsieur who had visited the false
Duval must have been cognisant of this exchange of name, and that, if
his name and whereabouts could be ascertained, he, in all probability,
would know what had become of the lady who is the object of our
research; and after the lapse of so many years he would probably have
very slight motive to preserve the concealment of facts which might,
no doubt, have been convenient at the time. The lover of the soi-disant
Mademoiselle Duval was by such accounts as we could gain a man of some
rank--very possibly a married man; and the liaison, in short, was one of
those which, while they last, necessitate precautions and secrecy.

"Therefore, dismissing all attempts at further trace of the missing
lady, I resolved to return to Vienna as soon as the business that
recalled me to Paris