ght herself the king's
spouse; pish! there are ceremonies and ceremonies, and wives and
wives; those of the hedge-concealed cottage and those of palace and
chateau!

As the coach sped over the road, the lady by his side smiled
disagreeably from time to time, and my lord, when he became aware of
it, winced beneath her glance. Had she fathomed his secret? Else why
that eminently superior air; that manner which said as plainly as
spoken words: "Now I have learned what to do if he should play the
tyrant. Now I see a way to liberty, equality, fraternity!" And beneath
the baneful gleam of that look of enlightenment, my lord cursed under
his breath roundly. The only imperturbable person of the party was
Francois, the marquis' valet, whose impassive countenance was that of
a stoic, apathetic to the foibles of his betters; a philosopher of the
wardrobe, to whom a wig awry or a loosened buckle seemed of more
moment than the derangement of the marriage tie or the disorder of
conjugal affection.

Not long thereafter the player left for America, where she procured an
engagement in New York City, and, so far as London was concerned, she
might have found rest and retiredness in the waters of Lethe. Of her
reception in the old New York Theater; the verdict of the phalanx of
critics assembled in the Shakespeare box which, according to
tradition, held more than two hundred souls; the gossip over
confections or tea in the coffee room of the theater--it is
unnecessary to dwell upon. But had not the player become a voluntary
exile; had she not foregone her former life for the new; had she not
found that joy sometimes begets the bitterest grief, there would have
been no occasion for this chronicle.

BOOK I

ON THE CIRCUIT IN THE WILDERNESS

CHAPTER I

THE TRAVELERS' FRIEND

It was a drizzly day in the Shadengo Valley. A mist had settled down
upon the old inn; lost to view was the landscape with its varied
foliage. Only the immediate foreground was visible to a teamster who
came down the road--the trees with dripping branches, and the inn from
the eaves of which water fell to the ground with depressing monotony;
the well with its pail for watering the horses and the log trough in
whose limpid waters a number of speckled trout were swimming. The
driver drew up his horses before the Travelers' Friend--as the place
was named--and called out imperatively:

"Hullo there!"

No one appearing, he leaned over and impatientl